Proletarian internationalism and socialist patriotism

[Babeufist]

PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM AND SOCIALIST PATRIOTISM

We rank proletarian socialist internationalism and socialist patriotism among the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism; these two principles are also part of the fundamental characteristics of the moral profile of socialist man. Indeed, deep international convictions and love for the socialist homeland are among the main driving forces in the construction of socialist society and are essential elements in the struggle against various class-hostile ideologies, especially against nationalism and cosmopolitanism. Once again, therefore, here is a discussion in which the participants are Karel Simon, deputy head of a CPCS CC department, Professor Ladislav Hrzal, and Jaroslav Kojzar, our deputy editor-in-chief.

SIMON: The education and molding of convinced internationalists is one of the most important tasks of political-educational work, which the 15th CPCS Congress assigned to all educational institutions, beginning with the schools. By providing education in proletarian internationalism and socialist patriotism we make an important contribution to the consolidation of socialism in this country and help to strengthen fraternal international ties between the nations of our republic and among the nations of the socialist community. International and patriotic education enables teachers, propagandists, and leading workers in plants large and small, as well as teachers in the schools and many others, to assist in forming the moral profile of the new socialist man.

HRZAL: More than one historical experience has demonstrated that proletarian internationalism and socialist patriotism are inseparably linked. The experience gained in the period of crisis in the party and society in 1968-1969 confirms the important contribution they make to ensuring unity and action readiness in the revolutionary communist movement. In their preparations for a counterrevolutionary surge, the right-wing revisionists and counterrevolutionaries have aimed in the political-ideological sphere primarily at sowing the seeds of doubts in the minds of internationally thinking workers, and particularly of the young and of some groups of the intelligentsia.

SIMON: They have in fact deviously expounded the ideas of bourgeois nationalism, and particularly anti-Sovietism, in opposition to the ideas of proletarian and socialist internationalism. They have fomented nationalist emotions and spread slanders and lies about our allies and friends. They have sought to disrupt the fraternal international relations of our people with the Soviet people and the workers of the other countries of the socialist community. Their ultimate aim was to tear our homeland out of the socialist community, to restore a bourgeois system within it, and to align it with the front of capitalism.

HRZAL: Genuine Communists and internationalists with no party affiliation spoke up from positions of proletarian internationalism and socialist patriotism during the crisis period. Using every possible means -- inside and outside the law -- they strove to unmask those who were betraying the interests of the socialist revolution and trying to seize social position and power. The internationalists did not forget the lessons of history. In defending our friendship and ties of alliance with the Soviet Union and the countries of the socialist community, they were also defending their socialist homeland, the Czechoslovak socialist republic. They were aware of the historical fact that without the guarantee of sovereignty, which the Soviet Union and the socialist community alone can provide, the Czechoslovak people would be unable to defend their country's autonomy against the imperialist states of the West, as has happened in the past.

KOJZAR: Indeed, in the crisis years internationalist patriots defended the Gottwald doctrine that proletarian internationalism and the genuineness of a person's Marxist-Leninist views are tested by his attitude toward the first socialist country in the world, the Soviet Union. It is well known that the representatives of rightwing revisionism and opportunism betrayed the principles of proletarian internationalism and socialist patriotism and, in consonance with anticommunist centers, endeavored to instill the hostile and amoral ideas of bourgeois nationalism and anti-Sovietism in the minds of the people. Certain unsound groups accordingly succumbed to nationalist and anti-Soviet tendencies.

SIMON: That is very true. The reason is that a genuine Communist, whatever nation he belongs to, honors the fate, history, and present status, as well as the rights and liberties of the nations of all countries of the world. At the same time he is irreconcilably opposed to all expressions of racial or national superiority. The best-known Marxist work, the Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels, has the slogan Proletarians of the World, Unite! at its masthead. This concise slogan contains the substance of proletarian internationalism. And experience has shown that in the whole history of the workers' movement the revisionists, like the bourgeoisie, have always waged a strenuous struggle against its content. But the workers' revolutionary movement, headed by Marxist-Leninist parties that have been guided in their activities and struggle by this slogan, has prevailed in the past, is victorious at the present time, and will triumph in the future. I am not saying anything new -- although nowadays this seems utterly outdated to some representatives of the workers' movement -- when I state that the appeal of the founders of Marxism-Leninism (Proletarians of the World, Unite!) is the chief theme of the Communists and all principled working people as they wage their struggle against the power of capital and for the rights and liberties of the working people.

HRZAL. It is because of this that it is so important to devote the greatest possible attention to the tasks of international and patriotic education. Its main content consists of forming a correct attitude toward the working class and the working people and of inducing loyalty toward the communist party, the advance guard of the working class and the leading force in our society. Furthermore, education in love for the socialist state and the socialist system, one's own nation and its history, and progressive traditions in particular, and in determination to defend all this against the class enemy, forms part of it. Within our state people are trained in mutual respect and brotherhood between Czechs and Slovaks and the other nationalities in our republic, love for their native land, for its natural beauty, and for everything valuable that our forebears created.

SIMON: As far as external relations are concerned this is primarily a question of education toward friendship and brotherhood with the people of the Soviet Union, the strengthening of the alliance with the first socialist country in the world, and the engendering of fraternal feelings for all the nations of the socialist community to which we are linked by common aims -- the construction of socialism, the common struggle for world peace, and steadily intensifying economic and cultural co-operation. Finally, the task here is to educate people toward respect for and solidarity with the working class and the working people of the whole world.

KOJZAR: All these tasks of international and patriotic education must be implemented in unity and agreement. Only if all the elements in this process receive proper attention will it be possible for us to achieve the desired results. And conversely, neglect or lack of attention to any aspects of education will jeopardize the effectiveness and results of ideological educational work -- as the right-wing opportunists succeeded in doing at the time of the crisis, to the detriment of the revolutionary movement.

SIMON: It is a well-known fact that proletarian internationalism which, along with the rise of the workers' movement, is the foundation and an essential part of proletarian ideology, is also the basic premise for an effective education in a sense of socialist patriotism. And what must be specially emphasized under present conditions is that the education of the workers in a. spirit of proletarian internationalism is a task of prime importance for every communist party if it wants to be worthy of this designation. For the attitude toward this aspect of communist ideology is the basic and most convincing indication of faith in and loyalty toward socialism and communism in general. After all, co-operation, brotherhood, and the solidarity of workers and working people of all countries and nations are the main and decisive source of the strength of the revolutionary workers' movement and of the successes of the communist parties. History has demonstrated most convincingly that proletarians cannot defeat the exploiters unless they line up in one front and fight together. If it wants to win, a united front of the workers of all countries and nations must face the united world of capital and imperialism. From the very beginning of its class rule the bourgeoisie has taken advantage of national and racial prejudices -- and it continues to do so -- in order to disrupt the unity of the workers, to set the proletarians of various countries and nations at variance with one another, and to weaken the power of the revolutionary movement.

HRZAL: We know this from our own experience. For instance, the bourgeoisie in the prewar CSR, fostering nationalism under the false catchwords of "nation," "homeland," etc., set Czechs against Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, and vice versa. The international bourgeoisie -- primarily the fascist states and German fascism in particular -- incited nations against one another, of course with the aim of unleashing a war. This clearly demonstrates that nationalism is an instrument of the bourgeoisie and, at the same time, one of the most dangerous and vigorous forms of bourgeois ideology. To slide into positions of bourgeois nationalism -- as the right-wing revisionists and counterrevolutionaries in this country did when they deviously propagated the ideas of bourgeois nationalism in its most outspoken form, anti-Sovietism -- means to betray the ideals of the revolutionary workers' movement, to betray socialism and communism, and gradually to change the substance of the socialist social system and to carry out the restoration of capitalism in Czechoslovakia.

KOJZAR: It is well known that in the prewar republic the Czech capitalists made Slovakia their agrarian appendix. Not only the Czech but also the Slovak bourgeoisie exploited and oppressed the Slovak people. After the victory of the working class in 1948 the nationality question was systematically settled. This resulted in the forming of the federation, when the question was settled constitutionally as well. But the fact that the nationality question has been settled does not mean that all survivals and expressions of nationalism have disappeared in the minds and morality of the people.

SIMON: Indeed, they have not. We still remember very well that expressions of nationalism and national narrow-mindedness do not automatically disappear with the construction of a socialist society, as was confirmed in the CSSR in the crisis years of 1968-1969. Nationalist, prejudice may survive in the minds of the people for a very long time, and do so very persistently, particularly when class enemies from the .Western capitalist countries and at home support it.

HRZAL: Because of this the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia proceeds in its congress decisions from the premise that harmful survivals of bourgeois nationalism can be successfully overcome only if we consistently educate the citizens and the young people in particular in the spirit of the ideas of proletarian internationalism, having regarded to the conditions of our homeland and our nations.

SIMON: This is certainly true as far as the international relations of our nations are concerned. After 1945 and especially after Victorious February [1948] a new era of fraternal coexistence between Czech and Slovaks was ushered in. Exploitation and oppression, which evoke distrust and nationalist passions, do not exist. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia is an enemy of any kind of oppression and a reliable exponent of the ideas of proletarian and socialist internationalism, and it leads our nations.

HRZAL: One may add that, thanks to the assistance of the Czech working class, instead of oppression and exploitation, Slovakia has changed from a backward agrarian country into one with a highly developed industry, a socialist agriculture, an advanced culture, and a high standard of living. Slovakia can be seen as a typical example of the results of the Marxist-Leninist solution of the nationality question in which not only is the absolute equality of nations upheld, but efforts are made to equalize differences between nations, so that more backward nations can draw level with advanced nations in every sphere of life. In this manner the question of the coexistence of the Czech and Slovak nations was definitively settled through principled internationalist approaches. Questions of coexistence, co-operation, and genuine brotherhood were justly and definitively settled. Comradely relations have developed in the spirit of a most progressive tradition and are now in the process of reaching a new, higher level. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia knows that in the efforts to consolidate fraternal relations based on equal rights between our nations we cannot rely on an automatic or uncontrolled development. Constant efforts to develop mutual respect and fraternal relations between the two nations and to buttress the unity and strength of our homeland constitute a highly important task for international and patriotic education. And along with this one must struggle against all survivals of nationalism and chauvinism.

KOJZAR: Education toward friendship and development of ties with the Soviet Union, the first country of socialism in the world, with the countries of the socialist community, and with the proletarians and working people of the whole world, is part and parcel of education toward proletarian internationalism and socialist patriotism.

SIMON: Exactly 60 years ago in the Soviet Union the socialist revolution was victorious for the first time in the history of mankind. For the first time in history the proletariat overthrew the bourgeoisie, assumed power, and established a socialist state -- the most democratic society in history. Therefore the building of socialism and communism in the USSR has had and will continue to have immense international importance. After all, it was directly because of the influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution that proletarian revolutions started in Hungary, Germany, etc. It revived the revolutionary and liberation movement in all continents of the world. The principles which the Soviet government proclaimed and began to implement -- equality and self-determination for all nations, the principle of peaceful coexistence -- have given new strength and hope for the future to all nations. And the successes of industrialization and collectivization, and the enormous burgeoning of education, culture, science, and the arts have reinforced the proletariat of the whole world in its struggle against capital. In World War II the Soviet Union warded off and gradually crushed that monstrous product of imperialism, German fascism, and liberated all the nations that were under fascist yoke. Through this glorious victory the authority of the Soviet Union grew immensely throughout the world.

HRZAL: The Soviet Union emerged stronger from World War II despite enormous losses. The firm moral and political unity of the Soviet people; their highly developed socialist industry and socialist agriculture; and the development of education, culture, science, and the arts -- all became objects of interest, admiration, and respect to the workers of other countries. At the same time the USSR -- the first and largest socialist state -- is a leading world power that does not threaten anyone and is no threat to the freedom and independence of other countries. On the contrary, it struggles for the liberation of all nations that are still in bondage; it is at the head of the movement for peace, friendship, and international relations among nations.

KOJZAR: It is a well-known fact that the peace movement helps to frustrate the plans of the warmongers, among whom rabid American imperialism plays the main role. The Soviet Union is the decisive force and mainstay of the struggle for national liberation and against exploitation, of the struggle for friendly relations among nations. And undoubtedly this is one of the reasons why the imperialist powers hate the Soviet Union so much and try to incite distrust and hatred against it through spurious propaganda. But in vain: thanks to its principled internationalist policies, the authority of the Soviet Union is growing.

SIMON: In our country we take account of the experience of past years. We do not rely on the automatic development of international fraternal relations with the USSR. In this country, too, members of the former exploiting classes still exist who do not harbor feelings of respect and brotherhood toward the Soviet Union. We saw a typical example of this in 1968. Therefore we cannot relax for a single moment our drive to strength through education the fraternal relations of our people with the Soviet people. Our co-operation and alliance with the Soviet Union are the fundamental and decisive condition for the construction of socialism in the CSSR and for our national and state sovereignty. History has proved that the Soviet Union is the sole reliable guarantor of our national and state identity. The experience of past decades -- and even centuries -- confirms that those who are opposed to our alliance and friendship with the Soviet Union are also opposed to the interests of our nation, our states, and our sovereignty. This means that he who honors the Soviet Union and endeavors to strengthen our friendship, co-operation, and alliance with it is a genuine lover of his homeland and a patriot, This is the truth and reality of our life. That is why the importance and significance of education in a spirit of proletarian internationalism and socialist patriotism is so great.

Tribuna (ideological weekly of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) No. 30, 27 July 1977

[Tim Cornelis]

Marxist-Leninist logic:

Nationalism espoused by non-socialists = bad
Nationalism espoused by socialists = good

"We rank proletarian socialist internationalism and socialist patriotism among the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism"

We rank two diametrically opposed ideals as the basis of our ideology.

Honestly it's like saying:

"We rank socialist collective property of the means of production and socialist private property of the means of production as the basis of our ideology"...

It's beyond stupid.

[Zulu]

Socialist patriotism works like this:

The proletarians have no fatherland under capitalism, but a socialist revolution creates one, in the form of the socialist state, which is there to guide and protect transition to full communism, in large part by supporting socialist revolution in other places and opposing the remaining bourgeois powers militarily. Until the brutal realities of the Nazi invasion, the USSR was quite often defined as the "Fatherland of the World Proletariat", which implied that that the British, German, American, Ugandan, etc. workers should feel patriotic about it too (and no about their home countries - at least not until they joined the Union as republics).

It's kind of a dialectical unity of two opposites.

Once proletarian internationalism is not a distinctive feature of a state, it can't be called truly socialist, therefore no proletarian should feel patriotic about it.

That said, a proletarian nation should be devoid of any ethnicity based definitions (too bad so many geographic and ethnic names are derivative of each other).

All in all, theoretically the socialist patriotism is fine and not contradictory but dialectically complimentary of the proletarian internationalism. In practice... I hasn't worked so well.

[Brosip Tito]

This thread is ridiculous, like socialist patriotism and Marxism-Leninism.

[Zulu]

This thread is ridiculous, like socialist patriotism and Marxism-Leninism.

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/14/01ea133a1097e3l.jpg

Great Russian chauvinist Djugashvili is somewhat perplexed at this statement



.

[l'Enfermé]

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/14/01ea133a1097e3l.jpg

Great Russian chauvinist Djugashvili is somewhat perplexed at this statement



.
This guy says the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge didn't really happen: it was all American bombing!

Yes, everyone takes you seriously, I swear. Go on.

[Omsk]

Don't wory comrade Zulu,the nationalist will probably spit a couple of times and than leave.

[l'Enfermé]

Don't wory comrade Zulu,the nationalist will probably spit a couple of times and than leave.
Sure, I'm the nationalist because I oppose Russian Chauvinism and the criminal Stalin, Zulu is not a nationalist while he advocates "patriotism". Sure.

[Omsk]

No,you are a nationalist because you support the Chechen nationalists.

Zulu is not 'advocating patriotism' he is talking about socialist-patriotism,something positive in its nature,its not the love for the Nation country,for the nation,but the unrelentless trust and love for the country of socialism,and the surge toward communism.The fight for the revolutionary transformation of the society.

Socialist-Patriotism is something that has little to do with Stalin (As you may think) - its origins are in the pre-revolutionary period.

[Zulu]

This guy says the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge didn't really happen: it was all American bombing!

Look if you want to keep stalking me, I'll clarify that what I meant then was that the genuine Pol Pot's mass killings provided a convenient way to write off hundreds of thousands of victims of Lon Nol's government (the one the Khmer Rouge overthrew), of the post-Khmer Rouge Vietnamese puppet government (some members of which were former Pol Pot's associates who defected the moment the Vietmanese invaded Cambodia, after participating in his campaigns) and of the American carpet bombing. So it's not that easy to say who killed who, what for and in what numbers in Cambodia.

Now, my turn to troll: please tell me what is the Chechen bandits' nationalists' freedom fighters' record on women's rights exactly?

[l'Enfermé]

No,you are a nationalist because you support the Chechen nationalists.

Zulu is not 'advocating patriotism' he is talking about socialist-patriotism,something positive in its nature,its not the love for the Nation country,for the nation,but the unrelentless trust and love for the country of socialism,and the surge toward communism.The fight for the revolutionary transformation of the society.

Socialist-Patriotism is something that has little to do with Stalin (As you may think) - its origins are in the pre-revolutionary period.
I support nearly everyone against genocidal maniacs and criminals like Stalin. I made my opinion clear. Do you support the FLN during their war against the French? What about the struggle of the Vietnamese against French, Japanese and American oppressors? More specifically, the struggle of Ho Chi Minh? If you do, does that make you a nationalist? If you say you support the FLN during the Algerian War of Independence and Ho Chi Minh, then according to your logic, you too are a "disgusting" nationalist.

There is a difference between solidarity with Chechen "Nationalists(in reality, Caucasian "nationalists", and not really "nationalists" because the people of the Caucasus don't really compromise a single nation) against a genocidal maniac and endorsing Chechen Nationalism. I oppose nationalism, "patriotism" and chauvinism, but I do support nationalists(like Castro, Ho Chi Minh, etc)on certain conditions. Freeing as much people from the Stalinist Empire is one of those conditions.

Now, regarding "socialist-patriotism", it's patriotism even if you add "socialist" before it. I can add "socialist" before "chauvinism", it's still chauvinism. Especially when "socialist-patriotism" comes from the same authors as the utopian-reactionary "theory" of Socialism in One Country.

[l'Enfermé]

Look if you want to keep stalking me, I'll clarify that what I meant then was that the genuine Pol Pot's mass killings provided a convenient way to write off hundreds of thousands of victims of Lon Nol's government (the one the Khmer Rouge overthrew), of the post-Khmer Rouge Vietnamese puppet government (some members of which were former Pol Pot's associates who defected the moment the Vietmanese invaded Cambodia, after participating in his campaigns) and of the American carpet bombing. So it's not that easy to say who killed who, what for and in what numbers in Cambodia.

Now, my turn to troll: please tell me what is the Chechen bandits' nationalists' freedom fighters' record on women's rights exactly?
More lies from you. This is what you wrote:


Also, remember those millions Pol Pot supposedly massacred? Well, just some of it may have something to do with this:

And you posted this picture.
http://www.us-foreign-policy-perspective.org/uploads/RTEmagicC_cambodia-bomb-map_02.jpg.jpg


You wrote, "millions" that Pol Pot "supposedly" murdered. "Millions" of deaths are attributed to Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge only, the US bombing killed 50,000-100,000 people, and the Salvation Front/FUNSK Vietnamese Puppet Government doesn't have any massacred blamed on it. You're just making this up. The only deaths attributed to Pol Pot are the deaths caused by the Cambodian Genocide. The only "supposed" murders attributed to Pol Pot are those that happened during the Khmer Rouge rule.

You were either saying the Cambodian genocide didn't happen, that it was mostly American bombing, or you are like all Stalinists, completely ignorant of most things, and you thought the American bombing campaign was conducted while the Khmer Rouge was in power.

[l'Enfermé]

Oh, and

Now, my turn to troll: please tell me what is the Chechen bandits' nationalists' freedom fighters' record on women's rights exactly?
A good one. Stalin didn't mind executing husbands and sending them to slave-labor camps to be worked to death or starved to death, which robbed women with small children of their husbands, who provided their livelihood. The Chechens "freedom fighters" were opposed to this, so yeah, I'd say their record on women's rights was fine by me.

[Omsk]

So many things wrong,so much demagogy.


I support nearly everyone against genocidal maniacs and criminals like Stalin.

Who percisely.


I made my opinion clear.

Yes,you are a supporter of nationalists.


Do you support the FLN during their war against the French? What about the struggle of the Vietnamese against French, Japanese and American oppressors? More specifically, the struggle of Ho Chi Minh?

The struggle led by Ho-Chi-Minh is not the same as the struggle led by petty Chechen nationalists and their pathetic anti-Bolshevik leaders.


But you are incredible in your attempts to rewrite the events,and to 'wash' youself from your open support to Chechen nationalists.What is interesting,is that nobody responded to your posts,besides me.

[manic expression]

Oh, and
A good one. Stalin didn't mind executing husbands and sending them to slave-labor camps to be worked to death or starved to death, which robbed women with small children of their husbands, who provided their livelihood. The Chechens "freedom fighters" were opposed to this, so yeah, I'd say their record on women's rights was fine by me.
That's easily one of the most tangential, tortured lines of logic I've seen on this forum.

[Zulu]

Ho Chi Minh
Uncle Ho was a Marxist-Leninist internationalist, and of course a patriot of the Socialist Vietnam. It was not until his death that the Workers' Party of Vietnam was overwhelmed with more nationalist-chauvinist types who sided with the Soviet revisionists against the more proletarian internationalist Maoists of China.





like Castro,
Castro a nationalist? Lol. He was an internationalist even before he went socialist. Then he became a Marxist-Leninist, although a bit revisionist, due to the Soviet revisionists he had to put up with. His closest comrade though, Che Guevara, was a Marxist-Leninist, leaning to Maoism, but admired Stalin in any case. And patriotism has been a very big deal in Cuba ever since it became socialist, which however never got in the way of Castro's international socialist initiatives.





Especially when "socialist-patriotism" comes from the same authors as the utopian-reactionary "theory" of Socialism in One Country.

Actually, no. The slogan "Everybody stand up to defend the Socialist Fatherland!" was in use since February 23rd, 1918. Trotsky recruited men into the Red Army under this slogan. So no, you've got a complete mess in your head. So here is a quick rundown:

Socialist Patriotism = good.
Nationalism = bad.

Even when nationalism serves the purposes of national liberation, it's of little use for the proletarians, since it just ends in them being oppressed by their "home-made" capitalists, instead of foreign ones, with no actual contribution to the world revolution being made. But there may be other factors which must determine the tactic of the proletariat in each particular situation, but I guess it is already too complex for you as it is...



Oh, and
A good one. Stalin didn't mind executing husbands and sending them to slave-labor camps to be worked to death or starved to death, which robbed women with small children of their husbands, who provided their livelihood. The Chechens "freedom fighters" were opposed to this, so yeah, I'd say their record on women's rights was fine by me.
From where I stand it more looks like what Stalin did was freeing those women from their slavery to their husbands. But of course the freedom fighters sought to protect their right to own their wives (several per freedom fighter sometimes).

This has nothing to do with the topic though, so my trolling ends here. What about yours?

[Brosip Tito]

Nationalism in all forms is reactionary today, be it "socialist patriotism", "Irish Republicanism", or "Quebecois separatism". It is anti-worker, anti-Marxist and a complete waste of time. Each case of national liberation needs to be examined, and analyzed. There is no blanket right that says all national liberation movements are good, for example, even Marx opposed national liberation in some cases and supported it in others.

Though, I find it quite funny how the ML's, proponents of the nationalist "right to self determination of all nations" are accusing others of nationalism.

What's that the red army said under Stalin? It wasn't "For communism!" it wasn't "For the proletariat!", it was "For the motherland!".


Socialist patriotism works like this:

The proletarians have no fatherland under capitalism, but a socialist revolution creates one, in the form of the socialist state, which is there to guide and protect transition to full communism, in large part by supporting socialist revolution in other places and opposing the remaining bourgeois powers militarily. Until the brutal realities of the Nazi invasion, the USSR was quite often defined as the "Fatherland of the World Proletariat", which implied that that the British, German, American, Ugandan, etc. workers should feel patriotic about it too (and no about their home countries - at least not until they joined the Union as republics).A socialist revolution creates a "fatherland"? How is it a "fatherland"?

The USSR was a capitalist shithole. Brb while I, a worker, am proud of a revisionist dictator of a capitalist country.


Once proletarian internationalism is not a distinctive feature of a state, it can't be called truly socialist, therefore no proletarian should feel patriotic about it.What?


All in all, theoretically the socialist patriotism is fine and not contradictory but dialectically complimentary of the proletarian internationalism. In practice... I hasn't worked so well.You're so incoherent. You lack any argument that socialist patriotism is not antithetical to proletarian internationalism.


That's easily one of the most tangential, tortured lines of logic I've seen on this forum.
You've clearly never read one of your own posts.

[manic expression]

Nationalism in all forms is reactionary today, be it "socialist patriotism", "Irish Republicanism", or "Quebecois separatism". It is anti-worker, anti-Marxist and a complete waste of time.
Too bad repeating something over and over doesn't make it true.


You've clearly never read one of your own posts.
Then we finally have something in common. ;)

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

This thread is retarded. No reasonable reading of the dialectic can get you to supporting nationalism from a Marxist standpoint. Marxists defend the USSR, PRC, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. against imperialism -- however we abhor their nationalistic perversion of Leninism. The socialist fatherland? :cursing: Of course fealty to the international revolution, always, comrades. Lenin's line that he would happily trade the Russian revolution for a German revolution should give a big clue to you all. And if what existed in the USSR in the 30s was socialism, why the fuck should we be so hot to establish that? Again any reading of Marx, Engels, or Lenin would clearly indicate that this "socialism" had little to do with what they were fighting for.

[l'Enfermé]

So many things wrong,so much demagogy.

Do you even speak English? Do you understand what that means?



Who percisely.
I don't know. Maybe the hundreds of thousands of genuine socialists that Stalin executed and sent to slave-labor camps? Maybe them?

Let me explain this. The reactionary regime of the Stalinists was murdering millions of peasants, proletarians and socialists. Some Chechens, mostly Communist Party men, decided to free to try to free their people, and their geographical neighbors, from this horrible evil.


Yes,you are a supporter of nationalists.
There's a difference between "nationalists" and people that see their their families, friends and neighbors against a horrible evil and try to fight against it. But if you want to continue slandering them as Nazi-collaborators(while ignoring that Stalin was one of the biggest Nazi-collaborators), and Islamic fundamentalists(they were neither, they were rather unfriendly to the Germans because of Hitler's alliance with the Cossacks and also rather secular), go on, the words of a Stalinist apologist mean nothing and won't blacken the names of honorable men.




The struggle led by Ho-Chi-Minh is not the same as the struggle led by petty Chechen nationalists and their pathetic anti-Bolshevik leaders.
Ho Chi Ming wanted to free Vietnam from French and American colonialists. The freedom-fighters in Chechnya wanted to free the Caucasus from Russian colonialists. Regarding them being anti-Bolshevik, they rose up against the biggest anti-Bolshevik in history, who slaughtered more Bolsheviks than anyone else.


But you are incredible in your attempts to rewrite the events,and to 'wash' youself from your open support to Chechen nationalists.What is interesting,is that nobody responded to your posts,besides me.
How am I "washing" myself from supporting Chechen freedom-fighters? I've been consistent in my praise and support for the heroes that fought for their freedom during the period of 1940-1944.

[Grenzer]

This thread is retarded. No reasonable reading of the dialectic can get you to supporting nationalism from a Marxist standpoint. Marxists defend the USSR, PRC, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. against imperialism -- however we abhor their nationalistic perversion of Leninism. The socialist fatherland? :cursing: Of course fealty to the international revolution, always, comrades. Lenin's line that he would happily trade the Russian revolution for a German revolution should give a big clue to you all. And if what existed in the USSR in the 30s was socialism, why the fuck should we be so hot to establish that? Again any reading of Marx, Engels, or Lenin would clearly indicate that this "socialism" had little to do with what they were fighting for.

Nationalist pervision of Leninism..? lol You have to be joking here.

As others pointed out already, Soviet nationalism already was rolling full steam during the Civil War, though not to the same degree as in the Second World War. That said, this thread is a pretty epic fail. I mean usually the Stalinists will at least admit that they think nationalism is bad, but say that the dire conditions of the Second World War required it for morale. It's a complete joke that anyone who embraces this kind of thing could call themselves internationalist in any sense of the word.

[l'Enfermé]

Uncle Ho was a Marxist-Leninist internationalist, and of course a patriot of the Socialist Vietnam. It was not until his death that the Workers' Party of Vietnam was overwhelmed with more nationalist-chauvinist types who sided with the Soviet revisionists against the more proletarian internationalist Maoists of China.

So much stupidity in that paragraph, "Soviet revisionists", "proletarian internationalist Maoists of China". Please.


Castro a nationalist? Lol. He was an internationalist even before he went socialist. Then he became a Marxist-Leninist, although a bit revisionist, due to the Soviet revisionists he had to put up with. His closest comrade though, Che Guevara, was a Marxist-Leninist, leaning to Maoism, but admired Stalin in any case. And patriotism has been a very big deal in Cuba ever since it became socialist, which however never got in the way of Castro's international socialist initiatives.

Castro was a left-wing nationalist that wanted to free Cuba from a US-made dictator, and in power supported countless left-wing nationalist movements around the world, especially in Africa. He only became an "internationalist" after he needed Khrushchev's help against the Americans(he initially wanted warm relations with the Americans, but after they rejected him and started trying to kill him, only then he went over to the Soviet sphere).



Actually, no. The slogan "Everybody stand up to defend the Socialist Fatherland!" was in use since February 23rd, 1918. Trotsky recruited men into the Red Army under this slogan. So no, you've got a complete mess in your head. So here is a quick the rundown:

I don't believe that's true. You're known for lies and fabrications, so maybe if you post a trustworthy source for that...


Socialist Patriotism = good.
Nationalism = bad.
Americans bombing Cambodia = bad
Maoists murdering 20% of the Cambodian population in 3 years, during peacetime = good

Right?


Even when nationalism serves the purposes of national liberation, it's of little use for the proletarians, since it just ends in them being oppressed by their "home-made" capitalists, instead of foreign ones, with no actual contribution to the world revolution being made. But there may be other factors which must determine the tactic of the proletariat in each particular situation, but I guess it is already too complex for you as it is...

Generally a proletariat doesn't exist in countries where national-liberation has happened, and when nationa-liberation has happened, that allows for the development of productive forces and thus opens up a way to socialist revolution. Such was the view of Marx and Engels when it came to Poland.



From where I stand it more looks like what Stalin did was freeing those women from their slavery to their husbands. But of course the freedom fighters sought to protect their right to own their wives (several per freedom fighter sometimes).

This has nothing to do with the topic though, so my trolling ends here. What about yours?
Are you making accusations of polygamy? Monogamy was the norm. Historically polygamy has been very rare, Chechen customary-pagan laws(Adat)not allowing it and all. Polygamy, Islamic clothing and other Arab/Turkish customs haven't been imported until the the last decades.

Though of course you won't back up your claims that Chechen women were property of their husbands, or that the insurgents of the 1940-1944 period had many wives.

On second though, maybe there's something about that in Molotov's or whoever's autobiography that Ismail posted in the other thread. The one that begins by saying that Chechen and Ingushs are a Turkic people...

[Zulu]

Nationalism in all forms is reactionary today, be it "socialist patriotism", "Irish Republicanism", or "Quebecois separatism". It is anti-worker, anti-Marxist and a complete waste of time. Each case of national liberation needs to be examined, and analyzed. There is no blanket right that says all national liberation movements are good, for example, even Marx opposed national liberation in some cases and supported it in others.

Though, I find it quite funny how the ML's, proponents of the nationalist "right to self determination of all nations" are accusing others of nationalism.

What's that the red army said under Stalin? It wasn't "For communism!" it wasn't "For the proletariat!", it was "For the motherland!".

A socialist revolution creates a "fatherland"? How is it a "fatherland"?

The USSR was a capitalist shithole. Brb while I, a worker, am proud of a revisionist dictator of a capitalist country.

What?

You're so incoherent. You lack any argument that socialist patriotism is not antithetical to proletarian internationalism.


You've clearly never read one of your own posts.

Socialist patriotism is NOT a form of nationalism. Neither is bourgeois patriotism. And while the bourgeois patriotism is grounded in nationalism, socialist patriotism is grounded not in nationalism, but in internationalism. The bourgeois-minded people are patriotic only about their home country and state, because they are nationalist. The proletarian minded people are patriotic about every socialist country and state in the world at the same time.

The problem here is that there are not so many conscious workers. There are all kinds of bourgeois trash in workers' heads, so many workers can be nationalist. It's all the more so in case of the peasantry. So the pressure for nationalism in socialist countries often comes from below. That was so in Soviet Russia and the USSR. That's why the Bolsheviks (and even Trotsky himself) used the concept of socialist patriotism to mobilize the ignorant masses to the side of the revolution and the internationalist cause. They tried to educate the workers and peasants that Soviet Russia was be regarded as "motherland" not because it was Russia, but because it was Soviet. That was so at least until the Nazi invasion. But only after the revisionists dropped the revolutionary agenda in the late 1950s and the state politics of the USSR became more nationalist/imperialist than socialist/internationalist the "Soviet nationalism" developed in full, allowing all kinds of ethnic nationalisms and chauvinisms to blossom.

Of course, if you're a Trotskyist, and don't regard Stalin's USSR as socialist and internationalist, you won't feel patriotic about it. (You'd be mistaken though).

Also, a conscious communist (not a worker/proletarian, mind you, but a communist) has indeed little use for socialist patriotism, since he is already sort of prepared material for a world-wide socialist "country" and can subordinate all his views and behavior to the cause of the world revolution, but that can't preclude him from having warm feelings for the part of the world that is already socialist (especially if it's become that way in part due to his personal efforts), while the rest of the world is still capitalist/nationalist/imperialist. But it's a long time till all the masses will become conscious communists, so in the meantime socialist patriotism in socialist countries is pretty much an unavoidable requirement. Naturally, the communists should do everything to prevent nationalism from resurging under the guise of socialist patriotism, and all kinds of nationalism, xenophobia and ethnic hostility should be harshly repressed, exactly on the grounds that they are at odds with socialist patriotism.

[l'Enfermé]

"socialist patriotism is grounded not in nationalism"

You're a joke.

[Omsk]

Do you even speak English? Do you understand what that means?



English is not my first language you moron,and i know what that means,to simple it down further for you,you hope you will get the support and attention of your fellow idiotic vermin to support you.



Let me explain this. The reactionary regime of the Stalinists was murdering millions of peasants, proletarians and socialists. Some Chechens, mostly Communist Party men, decided to free to try to free their people, and their geographical neighbors, from this horrible evil.


Ohhh such a great evil!Thank god for those Chechen heroes of old!Too bad they flirted with Nazis and were quite anti-bolshevik and anti-socialist,and quite nationalist,in actions,and rhetoric.

Yes,you are a supporter of nationalists.

There's a difference between "nationalists" and people that see their their families, friends and neighbors against a horrible evil and try to fight against it. But if you want to continue slandering them as Nazi-collaborators(while ignoring that Stalin was one of the biggest Nazi-collaborators), and Islamic fundamentalists(they were neither, they were rather unfriendly to the Germans because of Hitler's alliance with the Cossacks and also rather secular), go on, the words of a Stalinist apologist mean nothing and won't blacken the names of honorable men.



Honorable men?

I can't believe this,they were a reactionary band of traitors and nationalists!


Ho Chi Ming wanted to free Vietnam from French and American colonialists. The freedom-fighters in Chechnya wanted to free the Caucasus from Russian colonialists. Regarding them being anti-Bolshevik, they rose up against the biggest anti-Bolshevik in history, who slaughtered more Bolsheviks than anyone else.



More pathetic empty rhetoric from you,these bands fought the Soviet state,end of story.



How am I "washing" myself from supporting Chechen freedom-fighters? I've been consistent in my praise and support for the heroes that fought for their freedom during the period of 1940-1944.

You are a consistent nationalist idiot.Off to damnation with you,and take your pathetic nationalist subversives with you.

[Zulu]

"socialist patriotism is grounded not in nationalism"

You're a joke.

No U.

Actually, it's easily provable that patriotism isn't grounded in nationalism. Because patriotism is like 2000 years older than nationalism. Many Roman citizens were patriots, but they weren't nationalists.

Go back to school and study some basic history.



So much stupidity in that paragraph, "Soviet revisionists", "proletarian internationalist Maoists of China". Please.

U'r'welcum.





Castro was a left-wing nationalist that wanted to free Cuba from a US-made dictator, and in power supported countless left-wing nationalist movements around the world, especially in Africa. He only became an "internationalist" after he needed Khrushchev's help against the Americans(he initially wanted warm relations with the Americans, but after they rejected him and started trying to kill him, only then he went over to the Soviet sphere).
This is utter rubbish. Castro was a petty bourgeois anti-imperialist (somewhat like modern anti-globalists) in the beginning, then he read up some Marx and Lenin and became a Marxist-Leninist militant. After the Cuban Revolution he didn't want "warm relations" with the US, he just wanted fair bilateral trade, understanding that Cuba was in no position to challenge the US militarily. He didn't have to become internationalist to get Khrushchev's support (since Khrushchev was ready to provide his support to the likes of Nasser and Nehru), and initially didn't even want Soviet presence in Cuba, fearing it could only provoke a full scale invasion from the US (kind of anticipated the Missile Crisis), but the Soviets persuaded him into cooperation exactly by pushing with socialist internationalism, which was a big deal for Castro.





I don't believe that's true. You're known for lies and fabrications, so maybe if you post a trustworthy source for that...
Does Lenin qualify as a trustworthy source?

http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/feb/21b.htm





Americans bombing Cambodia = bad
Maoists murdering 20% of the Cambodian population in 3 years, during peacetime = good

Right?

Wrong.

First of all, it wasn't peace time in Cambodia, but a civil war. And no, Pol Pot's indiscriminate killings were no better than the American carpet bombings.

Now, back on topic:

Nationalism = bad (in the 20th and 21st centuries, it used to be good from the 15th through 19th - dia-fucking-lectics, pal!)
Socialist patriotism = good.

Problem?





Generally a proletariat doesn't exist in countries where national-liberation has happened, and when nationa-liberation has happened, that allows for the development of productive forces and thus opens up a way to socialist revolution. Such was the view of Marx and Engels when it came to Poland.

That's true not only in the case of Poland, but also in the case of the American colonies, Hungary, Yugoslavia, India, China, etc. Basically everywhere the metropolitan bourgeoisie prevented the local bourgeoisie from developing proper capitalism. However, it's not applicable to your beloved Chechen brigands, since there were no bourgeoisie among them - that's why I deny that they were proper nationalists. Much rather they were just petty feudal lords somewhat stuck in tribalism and heavily influenced by an ultra-reactionary religious fundamentalist ideology. Do you really think Marx would see anything good in them? How were they any better than the Taliban, for instance? And, BTW, they "rebelled" not only against Stalin, but against all the "Old Bolsheviks" he "murdered", because, you know, they had a long trail of "freedom fighting" in the 1920s already.

Newsflash: Marxists do not condemn colonialism per se, since historically it helped bring civilization to the most backward and savage corners around the globe. Only when the metropolitan nations began suffering from the capitalist crises, and stopped promoting progress in the colonies, and began, on the contrary, deliberately stall progress there trying to preserve their dominance though the backwardness of their colonies, did colonialism became reactionary.

That was not how the relations unfolded between the Soviet Russia and the national republics and autonomies in the USSR. The Bolsheviks tried to develop all regions economically and culturally, and establish equal and fraternal relations between all peoples, sometimes even at the expense of the efficiency (setting protective quotas for ethnic minorities and autonomies). Therefore the feudal and quasi-nationalist separatists were the force of reaction, rightfully repressed in the name of social progress.





Are you making accusations of polygamy? Monogamy was the norm. Historically polygamy has been very rare, Chechen customary-pagan laws(Adat)not allowing it and all. Polygamy, Islamic clothing and other Arab/Turkish customs haven't been imported until the the last decades.

Though of course you won't back up your claims that Chechen women were property of their husbands, or that the insurgents of the 1940-1944 period had many wives.

On second though, maybe there's something about that in Molotov's or whoever's autobiography that Ismail posted in the other thread. The one that begins by saying that Chechen and Ingushs are a Turkic people...
It's not an "accusation", just stating the fact. And come on, even these days the Chechens want Putin to allow polygamy there, and you're trying to tell me that wasn't the case a century ago? Now, that is a joke indeed.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/04/07/uk-russia-chechnya-polygamy-idUKTRE5361DO20090407


.

[Geiseric]

This acceptance of any kind of nation is in defiance of marxism. There was no patriotism in the Russian Civil War, the Red Army was fighting for the Communist International, a greater cause than russian nationalism. That is why the people in russia, spain, and everywhere else with a communist movement fight, and why the people in russia had enough will to live through the entire process, internationalism and communism, not a state that is ruled by a bureaucracy.

[Zulu]

This acceptance of any kind of nation is in defiance of marxism. There was no patriotism in the Russian Civil War, the Red Army was fighting for the Communist International, a greater cause than russian nationalism. That is why the people in russia, spain, and everywhere else with a communist movement fight, and why the people in russia had enough will to live through the entire process, internationalism and communism, not a state that is ruled by a bureaucracy.

The socialist fatherland is in danger! Long live the socialist fatherland! Long live the international socialist revolution!

This was signed by Vladimir Illyich Motherfucking LENIN on the 21st of February, 1918.

http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/feb/21b.htm

Any questions?


.

[Omsk]

The Soviets didn't fight in WW2 because of 'Russian nationalism' .

You "anti-Stalinists" never cease to amaze me.

[Geiseric]

The russians under stalin didn't care about the world revolutions, Stalin found it complacent to making the communists worldwide subordinate to bourgeois parties! It was a cheuvanism of other countries, "they can't have a revolution." and a complete program of minimalism. Soviet foreign policy was what was determined by what was good for the U.S.S.R, not the worldwide communism. Popular frontism, check it out. Complete failure.

[Zulu]

This acceptance of any kind of nation is in defiance of marxism. There was no patriotism in the Russian Civil War, the Red Army was fighting for the Communist International, a greater cause than russian nationalism. That is why the people in russia, spain, and everywhere else with a communist movement fight, and why the people in russia had enough will to live through the entire process, internationalism and communism, not a state that is ruled by a bureaucracy.
10 years later...

The russians under stalin didn't care about the world revolutions, Stalin found it complacent to making the communists worldwide subordinate to bourgeois parties! It was a cheuvanism of other countries, "they can't have a revolution." and a complete program of minimalism. Soviet foreign policy was what was determined by what was good for the U.S.S.R, not the worldwide communism. Popular frontism, check it out. Complete failure.

Oh, those Russians... Soooo moody.

Guess they drank too much vodka in the October Revolution, so while they were having a hangover, Evil Stalin sneaked in and stole their internationalist balalaika...



.

[A Marxist Historian]

Socialist patriotism works like this:

The proletarians have no fatherland under capitalism, but a socialist revolution creates one, in the form of the socialist state, which is there to guide and protect transition to full communism, in large part by supporting socialist revolution in other places and opposing the remaining bourgeois powers militarily. Until the brutal realities of the Nazi invasion, the USSR was quite often defined as the "Fatherland of the World Proletariat", which implied that that the British, German, American, Ugandan, etc. workers should feel patriotic about it too (and no about their home countries - at least not until they joined the Union as republics).

It's kind of a dialectical unity of two opposites.

Once proletarian internationalism is not a distinctive feature of a state, it can't be called truly socialist, therefore no proletarian should feel patriotic about it.

That said, a proletarian nation should be devoid of any ethnicity based definitions (too bad so many geographic and ethnic names are derivative of each other).

All in all, theoretically the socialist patriotism is fine and not contradictory but dialectically complimentary of the proletarian internationalism. In practice... I hasn't worked so well.

For somebody to advocate "socialist patriotism" and "Marxism-Leninism" at the same time is a flat out absurdity.

Even Zulu remembers that Marx wrote this pamphlet called the Communist Manifesto in which he said that "the workers have no country, they have nothing to lose but their chains."

And Lenin? "Social-patriotism" was almost his favorite curse word, the single thing he hated the most.

But then "Marxism-Leninism" is just a euphemism for Stalinism, sort of like rebranding "criminal" as "legally challenged." Stalin was definitely a Russian national chauvinist social-patriot, who grooved on Ivan the Terrible and all those Tsars who Marx hated so much. And nationalist "ethnic cleansing" of allegedly pro-fascist nationalities was one of the very ugliest features of the Great Terror.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

The socialist fatherland is in danger! Long live the socialist fatherland! Long live the international socialist revolution!

This was signed by Vladimir Illyich Motherfucking LENIN on the 21st of February, 1918.

http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/feb/21b.htm

Any questions?


.

Yeah. Just where in the phrase "the socialist fatherland" is there any reference to any nation or nationality whatsoever?

As far as Lenin was concerned in 1918, Russia was just a temporary pit stop on the way to revolution in the real socialist fatherland, Germany, and then the rest of the world. Unfortunately, things didn't work out that way.

-M.H.-

[manic expression]

Even Zulu remembers that Marx wrote this pamphlet called the Communist Manifesto in which he said that "the workers have no country, they have nothing to lose but their chains."
He also wrote in that same pamphlet "Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word."


And Lenin? "Social-patriotism" was almost his favorite curse word, the single thing he hated the most.
Only in the context of the controversies of the 2nd International. Removed from that immediate political atmosphere and the significance is lost.


But then "Marxism-Leninism" is just a euphemism for Stalinism, sort of like rebranding "criminal" as "legally challenged." Stalin was definitely a Russian national chauvinist social-patriot,
Except Stalin happened to be Georgian, not Russian. How annoying.

[Zulu]

Even Zulu remembers that Marx wrote this pamphlet called the Communist Manifesto in which he said that "the workers have no country, they have nothing to lose but their chains."
That's because the workers literally had no land or any other property in their countries of birth and/or residence.
[/quote]





And Lenin? "Social-patriotism" was almost his favorite curse word, the single thing he hated the most.
That was during the WWI, when the social democracy tried to rally the workers to support the war effort of the imperialist governments.

Care to comment on what he said just 4 months after the October Revolution?

LONG LIVE OUR SOCIALIST FATHERLAND! - said Lenin.





Stalin was definitely a Russian national chauvinist social-patriot, who grooved on Ivan the Terrible and all those Tsars who Marx hated so much.
Nobody's perfect. Stalin's habits, tastes and several pronouncements (but not pronounciation - he spoke Russian with grave accent), along with a certain Lenin's comment on Stalin - together with Dzerzhinsky & Ordjonikidze (two Georgians and a Pole - some gang of Russian chauvinists!), did give fuel for such statements. However, the Marxist-Leninists maintain that it never clouded Stalin's judgment as a revolutionary. Incidentally, Stalin often liked to pose as an "Asian", although he knew that his birthplace - Georgia - was geographically a European country. What kind of a Russian chauvinist would do that?

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/9940/staling.jpg http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/14/01ea133a1097e3l.jpg



In the end of his life Stalin proved beyond any doubt that he had no imperialist or chauvinist agenda and put the interests of the international proletarian solidarity above the purported "national interests" of the Soviet Union. I mean, that in 1945 the Soviets claimed Port Arthur, a strategically important naval base in Manchuria which had been lost by the Tsarist Russia to Japan after a dramatic siege in 1905 (and which arguably had become a trigger of the First Russian Revolution, along with the "Bloody Sunday"), and there was a lot of chauvinist sentiment about that among the Russian nationalists. However, once the communists took power in China and established the PRC in 1949, Stalin without hesitation forfeited the Soviet rights to Port Arthur and turned it over to Mao.




.

[Ostrinski]

From wikipedia:

Although he was Georgian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgians) by birth, Stalin became a Russian nationalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia#Soviet_Russia)[85] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin#cite_note-AdlerPouwels2011-84) and significantly promoted Russian history, language, and Russian national heroes, particularly during the 1930s and 1940s. He held the Russians up as the elder brothers of the non-Russian minorities.[86] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin#cite_note-85)
During Stalin's reign the official and long-lived style of Socialist Realism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Realism) was established for painting, sculpture, music, drama and literature. Previously fashionable "revolutionary" expressionism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressionism), abstract art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art), and avant-garde (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_avant-garde) experimentation were discouraged or denounced as "formalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_%28art%29)".
The degree of Stalin's personal involvement in general, and in specific instances, has been the subject of discussion.[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)] Stalin's favorite novel Pharaoh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh_%28novel%29), shared similarities[citation needed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed)] with Sergei Eisenstein (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Eisenstein)'s film, Ivan the Terrible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_%28film%29), produced under Stalin's tutelage.
In architecture, a Stalinist Empire Style (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinist_architecture) (basically, updated neoclassicism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoclassicism) on a very large scale, exemplified by the Seven Sisters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_%28Moscow%29) of Moscow) replaced the constructivism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivist_architecture) of the 1920s. Stalin's rule had a largely disruptive effect on indigenous cultures within the Soviet Union, though the politics of Korenizatsiya (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korenizatsiya) and forced development were possibly beneficial to the integration of later generations of indigenous cultures.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

This thread is retarded. No reasonable reading of the dialectic can get you to supporting nationalism from a Marxist standpoint. Marxists defend the USSR, PRC, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. against imperialism -- however we abhor their nationalistic perversion of Leninism. The socialist fatherland? :cursing: Of course fealty to the international revolution, always, comrades. Lenin's line that he would happily trade the Russian revolution for a German revolution should give a big clue to you all. And if what existed in the USSR in the 30s was socialism, why the fuck should we be so hot to establish that? Again any reading of Marx, Engels, or Lenin would clearly indicate that this "socialism" had little to do with what they were fighting for.

Language please.

[Zulu]

Yeah. Just where in the phrase "the socialist fatherland" is there any reference to any nation or nationality whatsoever?

There is none, because socialist patriotism has nothing to do with nationhood.

[9]

This thread is retarded. No reasonable reading of the dialectic can get you to supporting nationalism from a Marxist standpoint. Marxists defend the USSR, PRC, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. against imperialism -- however we abhor their nationalistic perversion of Leninism.
Speaking of retarded.

[Paulappaul]

Patriotism in and of itself, disregarding the nationalist sentiments is still bad regardless of whether or not it is "Socialist". To have unquestioning and unending dedication, love, support willing to meet the face of death for a country is bad because it means unquestioning loyalty to authority. Regardless of what mode of production dominates within a certain confine we must question ourselves and institutions, particularly those with vertical forms of authority. To be patriotic means to be devoted to the nation which reproduces ignorance and idleness when the nation is in wrongdoing.

[9]

Patriotism in and of itself, disregarding the nationalist sentiments

I think the distinction that people in this thread are drawing between nationalism and patriotism is completely bogus anyway.

[Paulappaul]

I think someone can be Nationalist and Patriotic. I don't think being a Socialist changes that.

[black magick hustla]

there is no such thing as a worker's state anyway, that was an invention of post-marx marxists.

[l'Enfermé]

there is no such thing as a worker's state anyway, that was an invention of post-marx marxists.
It's an invention of Marx and Engels. You're making that up.

[l'Enfermé]

English is not my first language you moron,and i know what that means,to simple it down further for you,you hope you will get the support and attention of your fellow idiotic vermin to support you.

Stalinists support:
Genocide
Ethnic cleansing
Man-made famines
Forced deportations
Great Russian Chauvinism
Reactionary-Utopian Socialism in One Country
Murdering most of the still living Old Bolsheviks because they suddenly became saboteurs and Anarcho-Fascist-Troto-Bukharino-Zinovievite spies and German-Japanese-Polish spies-collaborators.

This doesn't make them "vermin". However, opposing these things makes you "vermin". Very well!


Ohhh such a great evil!Thank god for those Chechen heroes of old!Too bad they flirted with Nazis and were quite anti-bolshevik and anti-socialist,and quite nationalist,in actions,and rhetoric.
Yes, such a great evil that it killed millions of people and sent millions of other people to slave-labor camps. I don't believe in God so I won't be thanking them.

Regarding flirting with Nazis, that's a false allegation that has been disproved. Regarding being Anti-Bolshevik and Anti-Socialist, that's hard to believe, because they revolted against the biggest enemy of Bolshevism and Socialism, the Stalinist bureaucracy.


Yes,you are a supporter of nationalists. I've made that clear a long time ago. Why do you keep on repeating it as if I have ever denied it? I am a supporter of anti-colonialist nationalists like Ho Chi Minh, Castro, the FLN in Algeria, etc, however, even though these Chechens weren't exactly nationalists, they were still against Soviet colonialism and oppression, so I support them, especially since it was my country they tried to liberate, and the countries of my Caucasian neighbors and brothers and sisters.


Honorable men?

I can't believe this,they were a reactionary band of traitors and nationalists!
I would say the same thing about the bureaucracy running the Soviet Union in Kremlin. A reactionary band of traitors and nationalists who destroyed the Socialist movement.



More pathetic empty rhetoric from you,these bands fought the Soviet state,end of story. I applaud them for their courage in standing up to the vast and powerful Soviet State. It is an excellent thing to do.





You are a consistent nationalist idiot.Off to damnation with you,and take your pathetic nationalist subversives with you.Why don't you organize a show trial, torture me and my "pathetic", "subversive" "nationalist"comrades, kidnap and threaten to kill our families, and have us confess to the most ridiculous crimes(and then still kill our families). That would be very typical of a Stalinist. Personally, I sabotaged over 450 factories with my own hands and killed 20,000 Bolshevik officials! UK payed me 50 gazillion pounds to do it!

[Paulappaul]

It's an invention of Marx and Engels. You're making that up.

Where exactly does Marx say something about a "Workers' State"? I didn't see it in Communist Manifesto, Capital, Critique of Gotha Programme. Just wonder'n

[manic expression]

Stalinists that support:
Genocide
Ethnic cleansing
Man-made famines
Forced deportations
Great Russian Chauvinism
Reactionary-Utopian Socialism in One Country
Murdering most of the still living Old Bolsheviks because they suddenly became saboteurs and Anarcho-Fascist-Troto-Bukharino-Zinovievite spies and German-Japanese-Polish spies-collaborators.
Quite artfully done, I think. A list in ascending order of size, with a consistent nonexistence of justification. It's like a sonnet of falsehoods.


I applaud them for their courage in standing up to the vast and powerful Soviet State. It is an excellent thing to do.Hurrah for anti-socialist rebels! Hurrah!


Why don't you organize a show trial, torture me and my "pathetic", "subversive" "nationalist"comrades, kidnap and threaten to kill our families, and have us confess to the most ridiculous crimes(and then still kill our families). That would be very typical of a Stalinist. Personally, I sabotaged over 450 factories with my own hands and killed 20,000 Bolshevik officials! UK payed me 50 gazillion pounds to do it!Holy Persecution Complex Batman.


Where exactly does Marx say something about a "Workers' State"? I didn't see it in Communist Manifesto, Capital, Critique of Gotha Programme. Just wonder'n
I would think the Dictatorship of the Proletariat might have been some sort of insinuation of a state of the working class.

[l'Enfermé]

No U.
What?


Actually, it's easily provable that patriotism isn't grounded in nationalism. Because patriotism is like 2000 years older than nationalism. Many Roman citizens were patriots, but they weren't nationalists.
Patriotism has been around since the 18th century and didn't stick until feudalism was destroyed...


Go back to school and study some basic history.
Can you make an argument without being an annoying troll?




This is utter rubbish. Castro was a petty bourgeois anti-imperialist (somewhat like modern anti-globalists) in the beginning, then he read up some Marx and Lenin and became a Marxist-Leninist militant. After the Cuban Revolution he didn't want "warm relations" with the US, he just wanted fair bilateral trade, understanding that Cuba was in no position to challenge the US militarily. He didn't have to become internationalist to get Khrushchev's support (since Khrushchev was ready to provide his support to the likes of Nasser and Nehru), and initially didn't even want Soviet presence in Cuba, fearing it could only provoke a full scale invasion from the US (kind of anticipated the Missile Crisis), but the Soviets persuaded him into cooperation exactly by pushing with socialist internationalism, which was a big deal for Castro.

He was a Latin America nationalist, but sure, make shit up, that's the Stalinist way. The rest of what you said doesn't even contradict what I said at all. Regarding the Soviet presence in Cuba, Castro actually wanted Khrushchev to nuke America(as shown in his letters to Khrushchev at the time) during the missile crisis, but Khrushchev wasn't really into the whole destroying the world thing.




First of all, it wasn't peace time in Cambodia, but a civil war. And no, Pol Pot's indiscriminate killings were no better than the American carpet bombings.
No it wasn't. The Civil War in Cambodia ended in 1975. Perhaps you should "go back to school and study history"?


Now, back on topic:

Nationalism = bad (in the 20th and 21st centuries, it used to be good from the 15th through 19th - dia-fucking-lectics, pal!)
Socialist patriotism = good.

Problem?
What do "dia-fucking-lectics" have to do with nationalism?

The Beatles = bad (dictatorship of the prole-fucking-tariat, pal!)
Rolling Stones = good

Makes as much sense as your rubbish.



That's true not only in the case of Poland, but also in the case of the American colonies, Hungary, Yugoslavia, India, China, etc. Basically everywhere the metropolitan bourgeoisie prevented the local bourgeoisie from developing proper capitalism. However, it's not applicable to your beloved Chechen brigands, since there were no bourgeoisie among them - that's why I deny that they were proper nationalists. Much rather they were just petty feudal lords somewhat stuck in tribalism and heavily influenced by an ultra-reactionary religious fundamentalist ideology. Do you really think Marx would see anything good in them? How were they any better than the Taliban, for instance? And, BTW, they "rebelled" not only against Stalin, but against all the "Old Bolsheviks" he "murdered", because, you know, they had a long trail of "freedom fighting" in the 1920s already.
Why do you insist on showing your ignorance? Petty feudal lords? Feudalism did not exist in Chechnya. According to Marx, feudalism is the exploitation of peasants/serfs by an aristocracy that controls the land which the peasants work on. Chechnya had neither an aristocracy nor gentry, nor any social classes. Ownership of land was communal. We didn't even have words in our language for "count", "noble", "duke", etc, etc. Allegations of feudalism are baseless. Maybe you can apply it to the Georgians or Circassians, but not to Chechens. I know of no society in Europe that has ever been more egalitarian then that of the Chechen highlanders(this lack of feudalism like in the rest of the Caucasus was what made the conquest and integration of Chechnya into the Russian Empire so difficult, as compared to the rest of the Caucasus. There was no ruling class in Chechnya to bribe with privileges into joining the Russians)

Regarding tribalism and "ultra-reactionary religious fundamentalist ideology", that argument is just a joke. The two leaders of the 1940-1944 uprising were a Journalist/Barrister/Communist Party Member, and a Jurist/Communist Party Member whose brother was a famous commander of the Chechen Red Army during the Civil war. Both were secular and like the vast majority of Chechens, valued the Chechen customary law, the Adat, more than the Islamic Shariat. The Shariat didn't even dominate in the 1990s, it was only forced on the Chechen people by the administration installed by Moscow very recently. Islamic dress codes, for example, were completely ignored. My mother, nor her sisters or female cousins, nor my grandmother and my grandmother's grandmother and my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother and all their female relatives dressed like Arabic women, in their Hijabs and all that shit. The custom of blood feud, although prohibited by Islamic law, has always been followed. Etc, etc.

Accusing the rebels of 1940-1944 of being ultra-reactionary religious fundamentalists is also ridiculous because this insurgency was based in the mountains. Islam amongst the Chechens who lived in the mountains was even weaker. Not all of Chechnya was Muslim when the Russians began their conquest of the Caucasus, it only began to become more or less accepted through the efforts of missionaries from Dagestan during the Conquest of the Caucasus. These efforts of the missionaries, however, hardly reached those living higher up in the mountains. These more mountain-based sections of Chechen society began to resemble, in terms of religion, the rest of the Chechen people only during the deportation to Kazakhstan.

The main basis of the 1940-1944 insurgency was this: National-liberation struggle.

Newsflash: Marxists do not condemn colonialism per se, since historically it helped bring civilization to the most backward and savage corners around the globe. Only when the metropolitan nations began suffering from the capitalist crises, and stopped promoting progress in the colonies, and began, on the contrary, deliberately stall progress there trying to preserve their dominance though the backwardness of their colonies, did colonialism became reactionary.
Yes, actually, they do. I'm sure the Belgians brought civilization to the Congo when they killed 15 million people, half of the population, in several years. Or maybe the British brought civilization to India? When they arrived, India was one of the most prosperous and civilized places in the world(certainly more civilized than the British Isles). When they left, it was one of the poorest.


That was not how the relations unfolded between the Soviet Russia and the national republics and autonomies in the USSR. The Bolsheviks tried to develop all regions economically and culturally, and establish equal and fraternal relations between all peoples, sometimes even at the expense of the efficiency (setting protective quotas for ethnic minorities and autonomies). Therefore the feudal and quasi-nationalist separatists were the force of reaction, rightfully repressed in the name of social progress.

You are completely correct. Yes, the Bolsheviks did that. Then the Stalinist bureaucracy usurped power, sidelined and removed genuine Bolsheviks, killed them later, and ended the Bolshevik policy of establishing equal and fraternal relations between all peoples of the Soviet Union, and replaced it with Great Russian Chauvinism and Russification.



It's not an "accusation", just stating the fact. And come on, even these days the Chechens want Putin to allow polygamy there, and you're trying to tell me that wasn't the case a century ago? Now, that is a joke indeed.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/04/07/uk-russia-chechnya-polygamy-idUKTRE5361DO20090407

Yes, I'm telling you exactly that. I was told by a very wise elder when I was small, that if a Chechen were to bring a second wife to his home, 99% of the time his first wife would crush his skull in with a heavy rock for this unforgivable insult on her honor. Chechnya was a highlander, egalitarian, class-less society, in which polygamy only existed among the low-lander disciples of Dagestanian Religious teachers. You wouldn't find more than, say, 100 Chechen polygamous marriages at any given time, until the custom was introduced(against traditional Chechen values)in the 90s, by Arab Mujahadin/Foreign volunteers and Chechen Wahhabis(who were generally proven to have been on FSB payrolls, ironically!).

[manic expression]

He was a Latin America nationalist
This is worth a chuckle or two.

[l'Enfermé]

Quite artfully done, I think. A list in ascending order of size, with a consistent nonexistence of justification. It's like a sonnet of falsehoods.
Do Nazis support the crimes of Hitler? Yes. Do Stalinists support the crimes of Stalin? Yes. If they didn't, they wouldn't be Stalinists. It's like if I accused a self-proclaimed Nazi of supporting the Holocaust and he would reply "Me? Supporting the Holocaust? What gave you that idea!"


Hurrah for anti-socialist rebels! Hurrah!
They rebelled against someone that has ordered the deaths of more Socialists than Suharto. That would make their cause an ally of the cause of Socialism.


Holy Persecution Complex Batman.
I don't understand what that means, you're too clever for me.

I would think the Dictatorship of the Proletariat might have been some sort of insinuation of a state of the working class.

[l'Enfermé]

Where exactly does Marx say something about a "Workers' State"? I didn't see it in Communist Manifesto, Capital, Critique of Gotha Programme. Just wonder'n
Generally Marx-Engel's Dictatorship of Proletariat is a synonym for "Worker's State"(but the Stalinists corrupted it's meaning), though the Marxist "Worker's State" is not a State at all, as according to Marx-Engels, the bourgeoisie State is abolished during a Socialist Revolution, what remains is a Proletarian State which is not a State, even according to say, Bakunin's definition. It's not political, it's just there for the sake of "adminstrating things". According to Marx and Engels, what "withers away"(as the famous saying goes) as communism develops, is this "Proletarian State", not the State in it's bourgeoisie form.

[l'Enfermé]

This is worth a chuckle or two.
Petty-bourgeois nationalism is still nationalism.

[manic expression]

Do Nazis support the crimes of Hitler? Yes. Do Stalinists support the crimes of Stalin? Yes. If they didn't, they wouldn't be Stalinists. It's like if I accused a self-proclaimed Nazi of supporting the Holocaust and he would reply "Me? Supporting the Holocaust? What gave you that idea!"
Just wondering, exactly who has self-identified as "Stalinist" here?


They rebelled against someone that has ordered the deaths of more Socialists than Suharto. That would make their cause an ally of the cause of Socialism.Your preferred mode of reasoning is that of no reasoning at all. Stalin's role in the purges was not that of killing genuine socialists for diversion, it was trying to keep control of a situation that spun wildly out of control, usually due to the actions of others (ie Yezhov). It is true that some genuine communists were killed, but it was a chaotic situation that Stalin did not have omnipotence over, and even beyond that Stalin expressed regret later for the loss of good socialists.

Thus, the comparison to Suharto is without justification.

Anyway, your most flagrant example of losing sight of things would be thinking that anyone who opposed the USSR is an ally of socialism. Think about that for a second...who else opposed the USSR? Were they all allies of the cause of socialism? Think about it, and you should see why your statement is so incorrect.


I don't understand what that means, you're too clever for me.It means you have a persecution complex that drives the main of your politics...badly off-course. Why are you talking about "Stalinist show trials" like they're happening across the street?


Patriotism has been around since the 18th century and didn't stick until feudalism was destroyed...Patriotism was around in a form recognizable to us in city-states like Venice and Genoa, not to mention many examples of antiquity as has been pointed out...it's hardly an invention of the 18th century.


Petty-bourgeois nationalism is still nationalism.
Obviously you missed my meaning, it's chuckle-worthy because being nationalist to Latin America hardly jives with your portrayal of nationalism. It would be like saying someone is nationalist to Central Asia or Oceania.

[l'Enfermé]

Just wondering, exactly who has self-identified as "Stalinist" here?
There are several synonyms for "Stalinist":
"Marxist-Leninist"
"Maoist"
"Hoxhaist"
Etc, etc.


Your preferred mode of reasoning is that of no reasoning at all. Stalin's role in the purges was not that of killing genuine socialists for diversion, it was trying to keep control of a situation that spun wildly out of control, usually due to the actions of others (ie Yezhov). It is true that some genuine communists were killed, but it was a chaotic situation that Stalin did not have omnipotence over, and even beyond that Stalin expressed regret later for the loss of good socialists.

These lies and fabrications have been disproved decades ago, and whoever believes in that joke is a joke themselves. Of the 17 members of the 26 member central commitee of the Bolshevik Party that made the October Revolution that survived until Stalin began killing Socialists, 13 were murdered by Stalin. 4 survived, one of them Stalin. Such facts are hard to ignore.


Thus, the comparison to Suharto is without justification.
You are correct. My bad. Suharto did not nearly kill as many leftists as the Stalinists.


Anyway, your most flagrant example of losing sight of things would be thinking that anyone who opposed the USSR is an ally of socialism. Think about that for a second...who else opposed the USSR? Were they all allies of the cause of socialism? Think about it, and you should see why your statement is so incorrect.
I didn't say that. I said that opposition to the USSR is helpful to the Socialist Movement. And that is a correct stance. The Stalinists first usurped leadership in the Socialist Movement, and then destroyed it through their criminal incompetence and sometimes on purpose.


It means you have a persecution complex that drives the main of your politics...badly off-course. Why are you talking about "Stalinist show trials" like they're happening across the street?
Yes, make shit up. Suitable for a Stalinist. I'm talking as if Stalinist show trials are happening across the street, not making fun of stupid shit Stalinists post.


Patriotism was around in a form recognizable to us in city-states like Venice and Genoa, not to mention many examples of antiquity as has been pointed out...it's hardly an invention of the 18th century.
No, no it wasn't. It's a modern bourgeois concept. You mentioned Romans, but Romans however, did not fight for their country. They fought for money. They fought for whoever gave them the most liberal donations. Patriotism didn't exist during feudalism at all; one was loyal to their Lord, not their "country". When feudalism began to break down, and capitalism began to emerge, Patriotism was invented by the ruling classes.



Obviously you missed my meaning, it's chuckle-worthy because being nationalist to Latin America hardly jives with your portrayal of nationalism. It would be like saying someone is nationalist to Central Asia or Oceania.
It would take a pretty stupid person to believe that. Ever heard of Bolivarianism?

[manic expression]

There are several synonyms for "Stalinist":
"Marxist-Leninist"
"Maoist"
"Hoxhaist"
Etc, etc.
All of which disagree greatly, and none of which identify as "Stalinist".


These lies and fabrications have been disproved decades ago, and whoever believes in that joke is a joke themselves. Of the 17 members of the 26 member central commitee of the Bolshevik Party that made the October Revolution that survived until Stalin began killing Socialists, 13 were murdered by Stalin. 4 survived, one of them Stalin. Such facts are hard to ignore.
On the contrary, the lies and fabrications that were disproved decades ago were those by Robert Conquest and his gang of bourgeois ideologues.

The uncertainty of the time made the party leadership fight amongst themselves and cast doubt upon their comrades. This started long before Stalin became the clear leader of the USSR.


You are correct. My bad. Suharto did not nearly kill as many leftists as the Stalinists.
So long as you believe the ideological friends of Suharto. :lol:


I didn't say that. I said that opposition to the USSR is helpful to the Socialist Movement. And that is a correct stance. The Stalinists first usurped leadership in the Socialist Movement, and then destroyed it through their criminal incompetence and sometimes on purpose.
That is precisely what you said:

They rebelled against someone that has ordered the deaths of more Socialists than Suharto. That would make their cause an ally of the cause of Socialism.

So in your eyes, any enemy of the Soviet Union was an ally of socialism. Obviously this is complete and utter nonsense, and so your position holds no water. Best admit it.


Yes, make shit up. Suitable for a Stalinist. I'm talking as if Stalinist show trials are happening across the street, not making fun of stupid shit Stalinists post.
Your words, not mine.


No, no it wasn't. It's a modern bourgeois concept. You mentioned Romans, but Romans however, did not fight for their country. They fought for money. They fought for whoever gave them the most liberal donations. Patriotism didn't exist during feudalism at all; one was loyal to their Lord, not their "country". When feudalism began to break down, and capitalism began to emerge, Patriotism was invented by the ruling classes.
:laugh: You have no idea what you're talking about, truly clueless stuff from a clueless mind. The Romans justified their wars on grounds of fighting for their country all the time. When Augustus caught a family member reading the writings of Cicero, one of Augustus' old enemies, he gave back the scroll and said "He was a good man who loved his country". Patriotism, to the Romans, was vitally important in all things. Even religion was a patriotic enterprise.

In the feudal age, patriotism also existed...not only within the city-states of Venice and Genoa and the like, but also during the 100 Years' War and so on. We can see this in the writings of Shakespeare, in the speech of Elizabeth during the war against the Spanish Armada, in the words of the Guelphs.


It would take a pretty stupid person to believe that. Ever heard of Bolivarianism?
So you think that Latin America is a single nation? Interesting argument coming from you. Tell me more about how it's a single nation.

[Zulu]

No, no it wasn't. It's a modern bourgeois concept. You mentioned Romans, but Romans however, did not fight for their country. They fought for money. They fought for whoever gave them the most liberal donations. Patriotism didn't exist during feudalism at all; one was loyal to their Lord, not their "country". When feudalism began to break down, and capitalism began to emerge, Patriotism was invented by the ruling classes.

In your ignorance fest this seems to be the only part that is on topic and not on your "Stalin ate my candy!" cries, so I'll give you a free history class:

Roman legions were formed on the militia/conscription basis, standard for the most Greek and Italian city states until Caius Marius' military reform in the late 2nd century BC. Even after the legions were professionalized, their main mottoes remained: "Senatus Populusque Romanus" and "Urbi et Orbi", which translates "For the Elders and the People of Rome", and "To the City and to the World".

During the civil wars of the 1st century BC (which had underlying economic reasons, of course, like any other war) the biggest ideological issue was which party's agenda served Rome the best. The famous orator and author Marcus Cicero even received a title of "Pater Patria" (the Father of the Fatherland), after he uncovered and dealt with a dangerous conspiracy during his consulate. When Julius Caesar made the Senate declare him a dictator for life, the surviving members of the "Optimates" faction lamented that "Patria" had perished. Even later, when the Empire was in crisis, and the original Roman aristocracy and citizenry pretty much decayed, the idea of the "Eternal City" evolved, remaining very important ideologically, and it were the legionary soldiers who were supposed to carry a piece o Rome with them wherever they went on campaigns. Even naturalized barbarians bought into the "Eternal City" ideology, and some of the best (least corrupt) emperors of the late Empire were such naturalized barbarians, who became Roman patriots.

In other words, the Romans were patriots not of a "country", but of a city. Of course, there was no such thing as a "Roman nation". Nations were indeed the late feudalism / early capitalism construct, but the idea of patriotism (along with other ideas, such as citizenship, republicanism, imperialism, civilization, etc.) was drawn by the intellectuals from the Roman times. Both Napoleon and the American Founding Fathers were big fans of the Roman history.

But, like Manic said, same kind of patriotism was characteristic of many (if not all) republican city-states both in Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages.

[Omsk]

Borz you can try this as many times as you want,but words stay,and i remember them,every single one of them.

[Geiseric]

All of which disagree greatly, and none of which identify as "Stalinist".


On the contrary, the lies and fabrications that were disproved decades ago were those by Robert Conquest and his gang of bourgeois ideologues.

The uncertainty of the time made the party leadership fight amongst themselves and cast doubt upon their comrades. This started long before Stalin became the clear leader of the USSR.


So long as you believe the ideological friends of Suharto. :lol:


That is precisely what you said:

They rebelled against someone that has ordered the deaths of more Socialists than Suharto. That would make their cause an ally of the cause of Socialism.

So in your eyes, any enemy of the Soviet Union was an ally of socialism. Obviously this is complete and utter nonsense, and so your position holds no water. Best admit it.


Your words, not mine.


:laugh: You have no idea what you're talking about, truly clueless stuff from a clueless mind. The Romans justified their wars on grounds of fighting for their country all the time. When Augustus caught a family member reading the writings of Cicero, one of Augustus' old enemies, he gave back the scroll and said "He was a good man who loved his country". Patriotism, to the Romans, was vitally important in all things. Even religion was a patriotic enterprise.

In the feudal age, patriotism also existed...not only within the city-states of Venice and Genoa and the like, but also during the 100 Years' War and so on. We can see this in the writings of Shakespeare, in the speech of Elizabeth during the war against the Spanish Armada, in the words of the Guelphs.


So you think that Latin America is a single nation? Interesting argument coming from you. Tell me more about how it's a single nation.

The old bolsheviks being liquidated by Stalin isn't a lie at all, it's very much true and you're in denial. Robert Conquest doesn't matter at all, the annals of history are true regardless of what any **** has to say about who killed who. They were killed at the times of the purges.

Uncertainty doesn't turn people into barbarians, there were no reasons for the purges, especially when Russia was starting to recover, relative to the devastation cause by the civil war.

As for the romans, any notion of nationalism wasn't there. Any notion of racism wasn't there, which Nationalism is reliant on. Engels goes over this. Back then there wasn't commodity production, and there wasn't profit or capitalism. Rome was an ancient civilisation that advanced as an ancient civilisation, not a modern capitalist one. People weren't slaves for race, they were slaves for the reasons that were seen as necessity at the time. Any people not part of the state were enslaved.

Also Elizabeth isn't feudalism, nor Shakesphere. Read a book. Those guys were in the 1500s-1600s which is kinda post renaissance, proto-capitalism, especially in England. If anything it proves the fact that Nationalism is a new thing to capitalism, and that nationalism is in complete opposition to socialism. I would think that any sane person would push for acceptance of other people of all cultures, as they are all part of the class struggle. We need to focus on class vs. class, not border vs. border. Countries were already imperialising Africa and America by then, so of course racism was new at that point. It wasn't necessary for oppression by that point.

[Drosophila]

From wikipedia:

There is nothing on Wikipedia worse than the Stalin article. Nope, not even wikiporn is worse than that disaster.

[manic expression]

The old bolsheviks being liquidated by Stalin isn't a lie at all, it's very much true and you're in denial. Robert Conquest doesn't matter at all, the annals of history are true regardless of what any **** has to say about who killed who. They were killed at the times of the purges.
I didn't say it was a lie, I said it was untrue that Stalin maniacally planned it all out and had complete control over everything that happened during the purges. As I said before the backstabbing within the party was well underway even while Lenin was alive...trying to blame Stalin for it is misguided, although there is something to be said for how quick he was to resort to heavy-handed punishments, that much should be criticized IMO.


Uncertainty doesn't turn people into barbarians, there were no reasons for the purges, especially when Russia was starting to recover, relative to the devastation cause by the civil war.
Uncertainty brings about panic, and panic brings about false accusations, and false accusations bring about...well, that. There were very solid reasons for the initial stages of the purges: Kirov was killed and no one knew who was behind it, former kulaks were found to have infiltrated the party to a shocking degree and Trotsky did have contacts in the USSR (though they weren't very extensive). The problem was how it took on a life of its own and society-wide crisis set in, which in turn made the purges more frantic.


As for the romans, any notion of nationalism wasn't there. Any notion of racism wasn't there, which Nationalism is reliant on. Engels goes over this. Back then there wasn't commodity production, and there wasn't profit or capitalism. Rome was an ancient civilisation that advanced as an ancient civilisation, not a modern capitalist one. People weren't slaves for race, they were slaves for the reasons that were seen as necessity at the time. Any people not part of the state were enslaved.
Well, depends on your definition of nationalism I suppose. If we take a very, very broad definition, then one could say that...if the city and people of Rome itself is to be considered a nation. Romans thought Rome and everything Roman was the best, that's one mode of thought that pervades most of that society for most of its history.

I agree about the material conditions of ancient Rome, I'm just saying that I concur that patriotism predates capitalism by a long shot, and the patriotism that Romans showed goes to show this.

Also, agreed that slavery in ancient Rome was without the racial dimension of the more modern form of chattel slavery.


Also Elizabeth isn't feudalism, nor Shakesphere. Read a book. Those guys were in the 1500s-1600s which is kinda post renaissance, proto-capitalism, especially in England. If anything it proves the fact that Nationalism is a new thing to capitalism, and that nationalism is in complete opposition to socialism. I would think that any sane person would push for acceptance of other people of all cultures, as they are all part of the class struggle. We need to focus on class vs. class, not border vs. border. Countries were already imperialising Africa and America by then, so of course racism was new at that point. It wasn't necessary for oppression by that point.
Ah, not so. Elizabeth's time was certainly feudalist...she was a powerful monarch who ruled over powerful lords and churchmen. A very centralized feudalism but feudalism nonetheless. The English economy was becoming more mercantile but as we learn from Marx, the presence of a bourgeoisie does not imply the presence of a capitalist society. Marx is quite clear that the bourgeoisie was present even in the earlier stages of feudalism. That Shakespeare found patrons among the nobility and monarchy only drives home this idea.

What I do not understand is why some seem so unwilling to read what's been written. Patriotism doesn't mean not accepting other people of all cultures...where did you read that here? Who wrote it?

[Zulu]

They were killed at the times of the purges.

You're mixing up the purges with the "Moscow Trials" and "Great Terror" of 1936-38.The first purge in the Bolshevik Party was conducted on Lenin's orders in 1921. A purge means that people are expelled from the Party, not shot. In fact, the "Old Bolshevik" deviationists had been purged from the Party in the late 20s, but many of them were reinstated later, albeit on lower levels of the party hierarchy. Too bad they kept the grudge and tried to undermine Stalin's correct line.





As for the romans, any notion of nationalism wasn't there.

Correct. But there was plenty of patriotism.





Any notion of racism wasn't there,
Actually, certain beliefs that some peoples were naturally predisposed to sloth and fear, some to rage and vigor, and some to balance and reason dated back to Aristotle (who only summarized the bulk of the Ancient Greek philosophy). Romans shared such views to a significant extent, although they were not xenophobic.





Also Elizabeth isn't feudalism, nor Shakesphere. Read a book. Those guys were in the 1500s-1600s which is kinda post renaissance, proto-capitalism, especially in England. If anything it proves the fact that Nationalism is a new thing to capitalism, and that nationalism is in complete opposition to socialism. I would think that any sane person would push for acceptance of other people of all cultures, as they are all part of the class struggle. We need to focus on class vs. class, not border vs. border. Countries were already imperialising Africa and America by then, so of course racism was new at that point. It wasn't necessary for oppression by that point.
Nationalism was developing hand in hand with capitalism, so the early capitalistic features, that first developed in the late feudal times, had the earliest features of nationalism accompanying them. Arguably the first distinct instance of nationalist type patriotic feelings took place when Joan of Arc was rallying the French to her cause during the Hundred Year War.

However, Renaissance is not a social formation, thus in the Marxist analysis it has to be "attached" to either feudalism of capitalism. It gets attached to feudalism, and can be regarded as it's latest stage, the stage of decay (just as the imperialism is the stage of decay of the social capitalist formation).



.

[l'Enfermé]

All of which disagree greatly, and none of which identify as "Stalinist".
If Stalinists don't like being called Stalinists, that doesn't make them non-Stalinists.



On the contrary, the lies and fabrications that were disproved decades ago were those by Robert Conquest and his gang of bourgeois ideologues.
Not really.



They rebelled against someone that has ordered the deaths of more Socialists than Suharto. That would make their cause an ally of the cause of Socialism.

So in your eyes, any enemy of the Soviet Union was an ally of socialism. Obviously this is complete and utter nonsense, and so your position holds no water. Best admit it.
Yes, in many cases, the enemy of the Soviet Union was an ally of Socialism, because the Soviet Union was the biggest enemy of Socialism in the world.






:laugh: You have no idea what you're talking about, truly clueless stuff from a clueless mind. The Romans justified their wars on grounds of fighting for their country all the time. When Augustus caught a family member reading the writings of Cicero, one of Augustus' old enemies, he gave back the scroll and said "He was a good man who loved his country". Patriotism, to the Romans, was vitally important in all things. Even religion was a patriotic enterprise.

The Romans justified t
In the feudal age, patriotism also existed...not only within the city-states of Venice and Genoa and the like, but also during the 100 Years' War and so on. We can see this in the writings of Shakespeare, in the speech of Elizabeth during the war against the Spanish Armada, in the words of the Guelphs.
No, not really. Patriotism as a word itself didn't exist until the 18th century, when it was invented.



So you think that Latin America is a single nation? Interesting argument coming from you. Tell me more about how it's a single nation.
Maybe learn what Bolivarianism means?

[l'Enfermé]

In your ignorance fest this seems to be the only part that is on topic and not on your "Stalin ate my candy!" cries, so I'll give you a free history class:

Roman legions were formed on the militia/conscription basis, standard for the most Greek and Italian city states until Caius Marius' military reform in the late 2nd century BC. Even after the legions were professionalized, their main mottoes remained: "Senatus Populusque Romanus" and "Urbi et Orbi", which translates "For the Elders and the People of Rome", and "To the City and to the World".

During the civil wars of the 1st century BC (which had underlying economic reasons, of course, like any other war) the biggest ideological issue was which party's agenda served Rome the best. The famous orator and author Marcus Cicero even received a title of "Pater Patria" (the Father of the Fatherland), after he uncovered and dealt with a dangerous conspiracy during his consulate. When Julius Caesar made the Senate declare him a dictator for life, the surviving members of the "Optimates" faction lamented that "Patria" had perished. Even later, when the Empire was in crisis, and the original Roman aristocracy and citizenry pretty much decayed, the idea of the "Eternal City" evolved, remaining very important ideologically, and it were the legionary soldiers who were supposed to carry a piece o Rome with them wherever they went on campaigns. Even naturalized barbarians bought into the "Eternal City" ideology, and some of the best (least corrupt) emperors of the late Empire were such naturalized barbarians, who became Roman patriots.

In other words, the Romans were patriots not of a "country", but of a city. Of course, there was no such thing as a "Roman nation". Nations were indeed the late feudalism / early capitalism construct, but the idea of patriotism (along with other ideas, such as citizenship, republicanism, imperialism, civilization, etc.) was drawn by the intellectuals from the Roman times. Both Napoleon and the American Founding Fathers were big fans of the Roman history.

But, like Manic said, same kind of patriotism was characteristic of many (if not all) republican city-states both in Classical antiquity and the Middle Ages.

No, not really. "Senatus Populusque Romanus" actually means "Senate and People of Rome/Roman People"(Though the word for senate derives from the Latin senex, old man) and "Urbi et Orbi" is a papal address. Regarding the main idealogical issue during the Civil Wars of the 1st century BC, what you say is false also. The main issue wasn't "who served Rome best", it was class-struggle. Regarding the rest, I'm pretty well aware of that.

You're mistaking the concept of Civil Virtue in antiquity with that of Modern Patriotism.

[Ostrinski]

There is nothing on Wikipedia worse than the Stalin article. Nope, not even wikiporn is worse than that disaster.Perhaps you could change it, then.

[l'Enfermé]

And you're "mixing up" Lenin's purges, which didn't kill a single person, with Stalin's, which killed hundreds of thousands of socialists. And Aristotle didn't "summarize the bulk of Greek philosophy", Aristotle's philosophy was pretty much divorced from that of his predecessors, and regarding Joan of Arc, calling her a nationalist-patriotic is ridiculous, she was an insane epileptic that took up arms against the English because she thought she saw Saints/God/whatever during her seizures.

[Ocean Seal]

Oh, and
A good one. Stalin didn't mind executing husbands and sending them to slave-labor camps to be worked to death or starved to death, which robbed women with small children of their husbands, who provided their livelihood. The Chechens "freedom fighters" were opposed to this, so yeah, I'd say their record on women's rights was fine by me.
This is awkward for a revleft post.

[Zulu]

"Urbi et Orbi" is a papal address.
With which the Pope blessed the Roman soldiers for over a hundred years, after Christianity became the official religion.





Regarding the main idealogical issue during the Civil Wars of the 1st century BC, what you say is false also. The main issue wasn't "who served Rome best", it was class-struggle.

The class struggle was the underlying economic premise. The ideology, however, was at that time quite detached from economy. With no Uncle Charlie around to enlighten those Romans, they all thought what's best for the Fathercity.





You're mistaking the concept of Civil Virtue in antiquity with that of Modern Patriotism.
Not "civil", but "civic" virtue. And patriotism was among those virtues. Which you kind of just admitted with this "modern" patriotism. Modern patriotism is modern. And ancient was ancient. And socialist patriotism is socialist.

"Patriot" is not even a Latin word, but an Ancient Greek one.

[manic expression]

If Stalinists don't like being called Stalinists, that doesn't make them non-Stalinists.
It makes Stalinism a non-existent tendency, invented for political convenience by anti-Soviet voices only.


Not really.
Stunning argumentation, but unfortunately even Conquest had to revise his figures because it was clear his work was utter nonsense.


Yes, in many cases, the enemy of the Soviet Union was an ally of Socialism, because the Soviet Union was the biggest enemy of Socialism in the world.
Aha, so anyone who opposed the USSR is a friend of socialism. Good to know you're all in with Churchill.


No, not really. Patriotism as a word itself didn't exist until the 18th century, when it was invented.
It was a word brought into English as a way to describe things that had been around for a lot longer.


Maybe learn what Bolivarianism means?
No, I'm wondering what you think. Is Latin America one nation?

[Ocean Seal]

Yes, in many cases, the enemy of the Soviet Union was an ally of Socialism, because the Soviet Union was the biggest enemy of Socialism in the world.

Thank you for showing me that you have no objective analysis and that instead you present your own romanticized view as history.

[A Marxist Historian]

He also wrote in that same pamphlet "Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word."


Only in the context of the controversies of the 2nd International. Removed from that immediate political atmosphere and the significance is lost.


Except Stalin happened to be Georgian, not Russian. How annoying.

It was exactly because he was Georgian that he went allout with stuff like praising Ivan the Terrible, which even most reactionary Tsarist nationalists don't go as far as. (PLus of course Stalin liking the way Ivan killed most everyone around him in his own regime, just like Stalin did in the Great Terror.) He had something to prove.

As for the quote from the Communist Manifesto, that simply means that it is the proletariat that will liberate oppressed nations from national oppressioin.

And in the year 1848 in Germany, Germany needed national liberation and unification, and Marx hadn't figured out yet that a second edition of the French Revolution, a bourgeois revolution ultimately led by the bourgeoisie, was no longer on the agenda. It was only as a result of the actual experiences of the German Revolution that he came to that conclusion, and started talking about "permanent revolution." During the revolution itself, Marx actually dissolved the Communist League, and communists joined the most radical bourgeois revolutionary organizations to push them to the left.

Times have changed! But yes, in the Third World, communists need to be the best fighters for national liberation, therefore in a certain sense "national." Which is not at all the same thing as bourgeois nationalism, as he says right there in the Manifesto.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

That's because the workers literally had no land or any other property in their countries of birth and/or residence.




That was during the WWI, when the social democracy tried to rally the workers to support the war effort of the imperialist governments.

Care to comment on what he said just 4 months after the October Revolution?

LONG LIVE OUR SOCIALIST FATHERLAND! - said Lenin.



Nobody's perfect. Stalin's habits, tastes and several pronouncements (but not pronounciation - he spoke Russian with grave accent), along with a certain Lenin's comment on Stalin - together with Dzerzhinsky & Ordjonikidze (two Georgians and a Pole - some gang of Russian chauvinists!), did give fuel for such statements. However, the Marxist-Leninists maintain that it never clouded Stalin's judgment as a revolutionary. Incidentally, Stalin often liked to pose as an "Asian", although he knew that his birthplace - Georgia - was geographically a European country. What kind of a Russian chauvinist would do that?

http://img851.imageshack.us/img851/9940/staling.jpg http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/14/01ea133a1097e3l.jpg



In the end of his life Stalin proved beyond any doubt that he had no imperialist or chauvinist agenda and put the interests of the international proletarian solidarity above the purported "national interests" of the Soviet Union. I mean, that in 1945 the Soviets claimed Port Arthur, a strategically important naval base in Manchuria which had been lost by the Tsarist Russia to Japan after a dramatic siege in 1905 (and which arguably had become a trigger of the First Russian Revolution, along with the "Bloody Sunday"), and there was a lot of chauvinist sentiment about that among the Russian nationalists. However, once the communists took power in China and established the PRC in 1949, Stalin without hesitation forfeited the Soviet rights to Port Arthur and turned it over to Mao.
.[/QUOTE]

Without hesitation? Not according to the Maoists!

Of course he finally gave Port Arthur back to China, if he hadn't, that would have been a total disaster for Soviet foreign policy, Mao might have broken with the USSR a dozen years earlier. Tito was one thing, Mao doing a Tito would have been a nightmare for Stalin.

-M.H.-

[A Marxist Historian]

Patriotism in and of itself, disregarding the nationalist sentiments is still bad regardless of whether or not it is "Socialist". To have unquestioning and unending dedication, love, support willing to meet the face of death for a country is bad because it means unquestioning loyalty to authority. Regardless of what mode of production dominates within a certain confine we must question ourselves and institutions, particularly those with vertical forms of authority. To be patriotic means to be devoted to the nation which reproduces ignorance and idleness when the nation is in wrongdoing.

I think I'm with Samuel Johnson,

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

-M.H.-

[Geiseric]

This shows how little of Lenin the "Marxist Leninists," know of Lenin, the entire split from the 2nd international was about "Social Patriotism," which disgusted Lenin.

[manic expression]

This shows how little of Lenin the "Marxist Leninists," know of Lenin, the entire split from the 2nd international was about "Social Patriotism," which disgusted Lenin.
Again, the term "Social Patriotism" referred to a very specific tendency, not to anyone who had some level of affection for their country.

[Zulu]

Without hesitation? Not according to the Maoists!

Of course he finally gave Port Arthur back to China, if he hadn't, that would have been a total disaster for Soviet foreign policy, Mao might have broken with the USSR a dozen years earlier. Tito was one thing, Mao doing a Tito would have been a nightmare for Stalin.

-M.H.-
Stalin had no trouble with keeping Port Arthur, while Chiang Kai Shek was in charge. The latter just had to put up with it. Once Mao got in charge, the transfer of sovereignty began almost immediately, with the process of the troops withdrawal stalled as the Korean War erupted nearby in just in a few months. However, Stalin could have just as easily motivated a friendly Soviet base in China without it. And Mao wouldn't have broken up with the USSR "a dozen years earlier", because he never did that at all. The Soviets broke up with Mao.


UPDATE:


In the course of his talk with Mikoyan, Mao Zedong
probed with seeming casualness an issue raised by “a female social activist of bourgeois
extraction”: “Once the revolutionary force achieved the seizure of power in China, it would
seem meaningless for the Soviet Union to retain Port Lüshun as its military base. Therefore its
return would certainly be extremely important to China.” On the same occasion, Mao openly
expressed his desire for the re-integration of Outer Mongolia with China. To all this the
response from Stalin was quite clear-cut. In one of his cables to Mao, he wrote: “In view of the
impending seizure of power by the Chinese Communists, the Soviet Union has come to the
conclusion that it will annul the agreement on an equal footing and withdraw its military forces
from Port Arthur as soon as the US military presence in Japan is evacuated after the
conclusion of a peace treaty with Japan. However should the Chinese Communist Party
prefer an immediate withdrawal of the Soviet armed forces from Port Arthur, the Soviet Union
would be ready to comply.” As for Outer Mongolia, Stalin expressed the firm belief that she
would never forsake the independence she had won. This was indeed a de facto rejection of
Mao’s proposal.

http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/publications/areastudies/documents/sinosov/Kuisong.pdf



.

[Zulu]

I think I'm with Samuel Johnson,

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

-M.H.-

Why not with Ambrose Bierce?



"In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first."

BTW, the origins of this "resort of the scoundrel" flying expression lie with the practice of the British to recruit convicted criminals into their colonial troops and expeditions. Many preferred not to opt for this though, and do their time in jail. And that often proved to be the smarter choice.

[Yuppie Grinder]

The nation-state is unique to the economic epoch of capital and is uniquely, inherently bourgeois. I've probably already said this dozens of times but for some reason a few people just don't get it.

[A Marxist Historian]

Stalin had no trouble with keeping Port Arthur, while Chiang Kai Shek was in charge. The latter just had to put up with it. Once Mao got in charge, the transfer of sovereignty began almost immediately, with the process of the troops withdrawal stalled as the Korean War erupted nearby in just in a few months. However, Stalin could have just as easily motivated a friendly Soviet base in China without it. And Mao wouldn't have broken up with the USSR "a dozen years earlier", because he never did that at all. The Soviets broke up with Mao.


UPDATE:


http://www.php.isn.ethz.ch/publications/areastudies/documents/sinosov/Kuisong.pdf



.

Actually, Port Arthur was in the hands of the Japanese from 1905, when the Japanese won the Russo-Japanese War, till 1945. For considerably longer than the USSR had even existed. Soviet seizure of Port Arthur in 1945 was justifiable, as class issues always trump national issues, but hardly something for the USSR to boast about. By then, the only claim the USSR had on Port Arthur was as the successors to the Tsars.

And the transfer to Mao could have happened a lot earlier, as Soviet troops took control of Manchuria from the Japanese, not Chiang, in 1945, and promptly turned most of the rest of Manchuria over to Mao, and gave his troops all the captured arms from the Japanese. A major reason why Mao was able to beat Chiang so easily. No need to wait for Mao's victory over Chiang, not at all.

And the transfer to Chinese ownership wasn't fully complete till 1953, according to Wikipedia. Eight years! And not till after Stalin died in fact, and Beria and then Khrushchev was in charge.

And your selective quotation from that article you posted a link for is rather fascinating. Here's what it says later:

"Differences of opinion showed definitely in Mao’s talk with Mikoyan and were hard to mitigate through further communication. A few months later, at the end of June 1949, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party secretly sent a delegation headed by Liu Shaoqi to Moscow. Addressing the contention with the Soviet Union, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party again told Moscow —through its delegation—about the disquiet in China over the Soviet military presence in Port Lüshun, the separation of Outer Mongolia from China, and the actions taken by the Soviet Union, after the conclusion of WWII, to appropriate and transshipping to the Soviet Union the machinery and equipment of the factories Japan had built in Northeast China during WWII."

In short, Mao was most displeased about Soviet troops stealing everything in Manchuria not nailed down. Not exactly proletarian internationalism!

Though Mao's desire to seize Outer Manchuria wasn't much better, come to think of it.

Anyway, this all proves my overall point. Both Mao and Stalin believed in "socialism in one country," theirs, and therefore would inevitably come into conflict, if Stalin had lived longer, just as Stalin's less arrogant and less Russian nationalist successor Khrushchev came into conflict with Mao too.

-M.H.-

[Grenzer]

Actually, Port Arthur was in the hands of the Japanese from 1905, when the Japanese won the Russo-Japanese War, till 1945. For considerably longer than the USSR had even existed. Soviet seizure of Port Arthur in 1945 from Chiang was justifiable, as class issues always trump national issues, but hardly something for the USSR to boast about. By then, the only claim the USSR had on Port Arthur was as the successors to the Tsars.

-M.H.-

Interesting, you seem to be rooting for the bourgeoisie on this one.

Russian nationalism trumps Chinese nationalism? A nationalist to boot!

A fine example of the reformist and counter-revolutionary doctrine of degenerated workers' states and the nature of Trotskyism. You're blatantly engaging in apologetics for Russian imperialism. Very sad, but I can't say it's surprising.

[A Marxist Historian]

Interesting, you seem to be rooting for the bourgeoisie on this one.

Russian nationalism trumps Chinese nationalism? A nationalist to boot!

A fine example of the reformist and counter-revolutionary doctrine of degenerated workers' states and the nature of Trotskyism. You're blatantly engaging in apologetics for Russian imperialism. Very sad, but I can't say it's surprising.

Yes, the USSR under Stalin was a degenerated workers state, whereas Chiang Kai Shek's China was an absolute horror story of a bourgeois state, so vile that it simply collapsed, with millions of peasants starved to death in its death agonies, as nobody except gangsters and US imperialists supported it. Even some liberal Chinese bourgeois thought Chiang was so horrible that they went along with Mao.

So yes, much better Port Arthur in the hands of the USSR than in the hands of Chiang, and not just from Mao's personal point of view. The Soviets did after all finally hand Port Arthur over to the Chinese, something it is hard to imagine the USA or any other capitalist power doing in the same circumstances. It is a terrific military base after all.

From the point of view of the Chinese people, as Stalin had nothing against the Chinese peasants seizing the land from the landlords, indeed he was in favor insofar as he cared. Whereas Chiang most certainly did.

Once again, your ignorance of anything going on in the world outside of your neighborhood and your own lifetime is sadly evident.

-M.H.-

[Zulu]

And the transfer to Mao could have happened a lot earlier, as Soviet troops took control of Manchuria from the Japanese, not Chiang, in 1945, and promptly turned most of the rest of Manchuria over to Mao, and gave his troops all the captured arms from the Japanese. A major reason why Mao was able to beat Chiang so easily. No need to wait for Mao's victory over Chiang, not at all.

Stalin still had reservations about the CPC's ability to take power and handle it until 1948. You can probably argue that after that he had to just put up with the inevitable and side with the winner apparent, but he still could keep Port Arthur and tell Mao to put up with it, just as he actually told him to put up with the independence of Outer Mongolia. Point is, Stalin was the Bolshevik chief expert on the nationalities' question since before the October Revolution, and even as one might question the integrity and Marxist-Leninist correctness of his take on the theory, the integrity of Stalin's political stance with his theory has to be admitted.





And the transfer to Chinese ownership wasn't fully complete till 1953, according to Wikipedia. Eight years! And not till after Stalin died in fact, and Beria and then Khrushchev was in charge.
1955, actually, with Beria having no say in the matter for the obvious reasons. But that was actually Khrushchev continuing Stalin's line, as it was worked out in 1948-50.





In short, Mao was most displeased about Soviet troops stealing everything in Manchuria not nailed down. Not exactly proletarian internationalism!

Spoils of war are spoils of war. And the USSR remained the core of the socialist camp, don't forget that. And obviously this policy was discontinued once the PRC was proclaimed, and the Soviets sent a lot of civilian advisors to help the New China with its development (those that Khrushchev would later recall).





if Stalin had lived longer, just as Stalin's less arrogant and less Russian nationalist successor Khrushchev came into conflict with Mao too.

There is all the reason to doubt it. Not to say that many Khrushchev's policies after 1956 were in genuine contradiction with Stalin's ones and with the idea of proletarian internationalism in general, which gave Mao quite legitimate reasons to criticize Khrushchev. But then there is the substance of the Sino-Soviet split, which was the border demarcation. When it came to it, the Soviets became just petty, for the lack of a better word. Would Stalin become that petty? Give me a break. Mao wasn't a Tito either.

[A Marxist Historian]

Stalin still had reservations about the CPC's ability to take power and handle it until 1948. You can probably argue that after that he had to just put up with the inevitable and side with the winner apparent, but he still could keep Port Arthur and tell Mao to put up with it, just as he actually told him to put up with the independence of Outer Mongolia. Point is, Stalin was the Bolshevik chief expert on the nationalities' question since before the October Revolution, and even as one might question the integrity and Marxist-Leninist correctness of his take on the theory, the integrity of Stalin's political stance with his theory has to be admitted.

That's your opinion, which Lenin did not share, calling Stalin a "vulgar Great Russian bully" in one of his last writings.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/dec/testamnt/autonomy.htm




1955, actually, with Beria having no say in the matter for the obvious reasons. But that was actually Khrushchev continuing Stalin's line, as it was worked out in 1948-50.

Spoils of war are spoils of war. And the USSR remained the core of the socialist camp, don't forget that. And obviously this policy was discontinued once the PRC was proclaimed, and the Soviets sent a lot of civilian advisors to help the New China with its development (those that Khrushchev would later recall).

There is all the reason to doubt it. Not to say that many Khrushchev's policies after 1956 were in genuine contradiction with Stalin's ones and with the idea of proletarian internationalism in general, which gave Mao quite legitimate reasons to criticize Khrushchev. But then there is the substance of the Sino-Soviet split, which was the border demarcation. When it came to it, the Soviets became just petty, for the lack of a better word. Would Stalin become that petty? Give me a break. Mao wasn't a Tito either.

The Sino-Soviet split wasn't over the border demarcation, that issue came up afterwards. It happened when K, pissed at Mao over various fairly minor political disagreements, cut off Soviet economic aid to China.

Would Stalin have been capable of being that "petty"? Well, seeing how "petty" he was with Tito, whom he broke with basically because Tito, up to that point a loyal orthodox Stalinist, if anything to Stalin's "left," didn't want to worship the ground Stalin walked on, I am sure he would have given Mao the same treatment Krushchev gave Mao or worse.

"Spoils of war are spoils of war." Now there's a brand new concept in proletarian internationalism!

-M.H.-

[Zulu]

That's your opinion, which Lenin did not share, calling Stalin a "vulgar Great Russian bully" in one of his last writings.
Why, Lenin apparently shared so little of my opinion that he nominated Stalin the People's Commissar of Nationalities. And on that particular occasion he was calling a "vulgar Great Russian bully" not only Stalin, but also Ordjonikidze and Dzerzhinsky. So, two Georgians and a Pole, such a gang of Great Russian bullies!!! Also note, how the honcho of the gang was actually Dzerzhinsky and Ordjonikidze did most of the bullying, when he punched somebody in the face. Also note, how Stalin accepted Lenin's position in the matter after that article came out, and how decades later it actually sort of backfired, when nationalism reared its ugly head all over the Soviet Union.

Now, all that said, I am not denying that Stalin did show some serious admiration of the Russian national culture, and had a special place for the Russian people in his WW2 victory toast and all. But I insist that it never got in the way of his adherence to the ideal of proletarian internationalism and his work in the interests of the world revolution.

By the way, these days although Stalin is very popular among the Russian nationalists, not all of them revere him. The more cunning types agree that he was the true and consistent Lenin's disciple and successor - naturally they think it's a bad thing, as both Lenin and Stalin (and the rest of the "Jew-Bolsheviks") were the scourge of the Russian nation. For instance, they cling to the fact that since 1943 till the end of the WW2 the national minorities from the Caucasus and Central Asia were exempt from conscription for active service and were only drafted in the reserve. (Of course, those conscripted before 1943 kept taking their hits in the front lines together with the Slavic youth, but who cares!)





The Sino-Soviet split wasn't over the border demarcation, that issue came up afterwards.
Until the issue of the border demarcation came up, it hadn't been truly a "split", the differences could have still been reconciled in a fraternal manner.





It happened when K, pissed at Mao over various fairly minor political disagreements, cut off Soviet economic aid to China.

I wouldn't call Khrushchev's taking a steamy and smelly dump on Stalin's corpse "fairly minor". Neither would I call that the doctrine of "peaceful coexistence" with the capitalist bloc on the basis of recognition of its right to exist (and exploit the toiling masses in its "sphere of influence"), or Khrushchev's diplomatic support of India during the Sino-Indian war of 1962. Still, the regular exchange of letters between the Central Committees of the CPC and CPSU continued until summer 1964 (that is, almost until Khrushchev's fall), and it's clear from them, that the CPC tried to reason with the CPSU to avert the split all that time.





Would Stalin have been capable of being that "petty"? Well, seeing how "petty" he was with Tito, whom he broke with basically because Tito, up to that point a loyal orthodox Stalinist, if anything to Stalin's "left," didn't want to worship the ground Stalin walked on,
Come on, Tito became pals with the British during the WW2, and was agitating Dimitrov and other Eastern European leaders like "Hey, guys! We should totally form a federation and join the Marshall Plan! And if Stalin doesn't like it, tell him to bugger off and let him play this Cold War shit on his own!" And in the economy (which is the basis of everything, as we remember) he beat Deng Xiaoping by 30 years in introducing the "market socialism"... They say Lenin had an expression to describe this kind of people, and that expression was "political prostitute".





I am sure he would have given Mao the same treatment Khrushchev gave Mao or worse.
To give Mao the same treatment, Stalin would need first to give Mao the same reasons to demand the border demarcation. But unlike Khrushchev, Stalin seems to have realized the true economic potential of China, with its enormous supply of labor power, and what it meant for the entire socialist bloc. If Stalin had lived for another 10 years, I think, the world would have been socialist by now.





"Spoils of war are spoils of war." Now there's a brand new concept in proletarian internationalism!

When a proletarian state wins a war against a capitalist state in the territory of another capitalist state, I reckon, it is eligible to take spoils. It's called "expropriation of expropriators". Mao's concerns were quite legitimate too, though. Stalin recognized that and rendered extensive economic assistance as soon as the KMT fell.



.

[Grenzer]

When a proletarian state wins a war against a capitalist state in the territory of another capitalist state, I reckon, it is eligible to take spoils. It's called "expropriation of expropriators".

Actually, it's just called "imperialism", nice try though!

You Stalinists are really on a roll in this thread: first nationalism, now imperialism. Ah, Stallinism.. It is a glorious system comrade, no?

[Zulu]

Actually, it's just called "imperialism", nice try though!

You Stalinists are really on a roll in this thread: first nationalism, now imperialism. Ah, Stallinism.. It is a glorious system comrade, no?

No. It's called counter-imperialism.